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Puree of Peas

A creamy puree made from cooked peas, milk, butter, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Puree of Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Cook the peas until soft and pulpy.

  2. Mash the peas through a colander.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Mix the flour with the butter until smooth.

  3. Pour the hot milk over the mixture.

  4. Return the mixture to the stove and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the pea pulp, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil before serving.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Peas + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,309 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

Butter and flour 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

Green peas
Provide the main flavour and body once cooked and mashed into a pulp.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the puree, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and smoothness and helps blend the flour into a paste.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the puree body.

The step that matters

Cooking the milk and flour mixture while stirring. Flour must be cooked with the fat and liquid while stirring constantly, otherwise lumps form and the starch does not fully thicken, leaving a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, pepper. 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.

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