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Boiled Greex Peas

A simple boiled green peas dish with brown sugar, butter, thick cream, and garnished with mint and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Boiled Greex Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Select peas that are about two-thirds grown and wash them in cold water.

Cook

  1. Cover peas with boiling water and add brown sugar.

  2. Salt to taste and cook until tender.

  3. Pour peas into a colander to drain.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer peas to a vegetable dish and add butter and thick cream.

  2. Garnish with mint and parsley, and serve hot.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Mint + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green peas
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the flavor of the peas.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the peas a smooth, glossy finish.
Thick cream
Adds fat and body, making the peas creamier and richer.

The step that matters

Cook until tender, then drain promptly. Peas that are overcooked lose their bright color and turn soft and mushy. Draining them promptly stops residual heat from cooking them further and keeps them from becoming waterlogged.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peas, sugar, walnut, butter, cream, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peas, sugar, walnut, butter, cream, parsley. 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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