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Pea Salad

A salad of cooked white peas dressed with oil, sugar, pepper, mustard, sea salt, celery salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pea Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the cooked peas in a salad dish.

  2. In a bowl, mix the salad oil, sugar, pepper, mustard, coarse sea salt, and Royal celery salt to form a smooth paste.

  3. Gradually whisk in the vinegar, one teaspoon at a time, until thoroughly mixed.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the peas and serve.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Large white peas
Form the bulk of the salad and provide its main texture.
Salad oil
Carries fat and flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil and sugar.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard for a rounder taste.
Made mustard
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp, savory note.

The step that matters

Whisk in the vinegar gradually. Adding vinegar a teaspoon at a time lets the oil and mustard emulsify into a smooth dressing instead of separating into a greasy, watery mix.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, mustard, celery, vinegar):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, mustard, celery, vinegar. 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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