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Peas in Cream

A simple dish of peas simmered in sweet cream, butter, salt, pepper, and thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peas in Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the peas

  1. Drain the peas and mix them with the sweet cream in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat.

  3. Add the butter, salt, and pepper.

  4. Thicken to your desired consistency with cornstarch.

Serve

  1. Serve warm.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
Form the main body of the dish and provide its bulk and flavor.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, creating the creamy base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and gels when heated.

The step that matters

Thicken with cornstarch. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the liquid is hot enough for its starch granules to swell and set. Stir it in gradually so it disperses evenly and avoids lumps, then let the mixture cook briefly before judging the texture.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, butter. 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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