Skip to main content
Main

Puree of Green Peas

A smooth puree made from boiled green peas, flavored with salt, pepper, butter, flour, cream, and baking soda, served over fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Shell the peas and set them aside in a cold place.

  2. Boil the pods in enough salted water to cover them for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the pods and return the water to the fire with the peas and a sprig of mint.

  4. Boil until the peas are soft enough to rub through a colander.

Make the puree

  1. Press the peas through the colander, stirring in 1 cup of the cooking water.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then return to the colander.

  3. In a separate pan, cook 1 tablespoon of flour in 2 tablespoons of butter for 3 minutes.

  4. Stir the roux into the peas and cook for 1 minute.

  5. Remove from heat and add 3 tablespoons of heated cream mixed with a tiny bit of baking soda.

Serve

  1. Serve the puree over squares of fried bread on a hot platter.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body and flavour, becoming a smooth puree once cooked and pressed.
Flour
Cooked with butter into a roux, it thickens the puree as it is stirred in.
Butter
Cooks with the flour into a roux and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the puree's texture at the end.
Baking soda
Added in tiny amounts to the cream, it is included in the record as a small addition.

The step that matters

Stir the roux into the peas and cook for 1 minute. Flour must be cooked in fat before liquid is added to avoid a raw, pasty taste. Brief cooking after adding it lets the starch thicken the puree and cook out the floury flavour.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, butter, cream, bread):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, cream, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes