Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cream of Pea Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the peas until soft, then mash to a pulp and strain through a fine wire strainer.
In a separate pan, make a roux by melting the butter and mixing in flour until smooth.
Pour the strained pea pulp over the roux.
Add the sweet milk and cream, then season with salt and pepper.
Bring to a boil, then serve in cups topped with a spoonful of whipped cream.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,331 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Peas + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,309 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,887 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, cream, pepper):
- Almondfits better
- Walnutfits better
- Cocoafits better
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, cream, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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