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Garnish, Puree of Green Peas For
Boil some young green peas, in the usual way, until tender. Pound them in a mortar, press them through a sieve, and put the pulp into a saucepan with a small lump of butter, a little salt and pepper, a lump of sugar, and a table-spoonful of good stock. Stir over the fire until the puree is quite hot, and serve, piled high on a dish, with the cutlets, etc., round it. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, 8d. per peck. Sufficient, one peck for six or seven persons.
A Victorian vegetable garnish rather than a side dish: a thick, buttery pea pulp banked up on the platter with cutlets set around it. Two things carry it — very young peas and a sieve fine enough to leave no skins.
- A peck of peasA peck is a dry measure of 8 quarts, which for peas in the pod runs roughly 7-9 lb and yields perhaps 2-2 1/2 lb shelled. That is the quantity the recipe gives for six or seven; frozen petits pois can be substituted by shelled weight.
- Boil briefly, not "until tender"Boil until tender, but no longer -- young peas need only a few minutes in salted water, or 2-3 minutes from frozen; they must be soft enough to pound and pass the sieve, which is what 'until tender' is after here. Prolonged boiling dulls the colour and flattens the sweetness the sugar is there to support.
- Mortar and sieveA food processor does the pounding in seconds, but do not skip the sieve — the point of the purée is that the skins are left behind. A drum sieve or a fine chinois worked with a ladle gives the smooth texture; a food mill on its finest plate is a reasonable compromise.
- A lump of sugarReckon roughly a teaspoon, though lumps cut from loaf sugar varied a good deal in size. With modern sweet varieties it may be unnecessary; taste the pur"index":3,"e before adding it.
- A small lump of butterRead this as 1-2 tablespoons for the quantity given. The recipe adds it to the pan with the pulp at the start; holding some back to stir in off the heat gives a glossier finish.
- Good stockA single tablespoon, so its quality shows. Veal or light chicken stock suits the cutlets it is meant to accompany; a strongly reduced commercial stock will overwhelm the peas.
- ReheatingStir over gentle heat only until hot through. Held at a simmer the purée dulls in colour and can catch on the pan bottom, and it thickens quickly as moisture drives off.
- Timing and yieldThe stated half hour presumably takes in shelling as well as cooking; the cooking itself is well under fifteen minutes. The recipe reckons one peck sufficient for six or seven as a garnish.
Cassell's lists this under garnishes rather than vegetables — an alphabetical placement in a dictionary, so not much should be read into it, though it is suggestive of how a purée was understood in a late Victorian kitchen: not a dish in its own right but part of the architecture of a plated entrée, piled up as a base with lamb or veal cutlets leaned around it. The technique — pound, sieve, enrich with butter and a spoonful of stock — comes straight out of the French repertoire that English cookery books had been absorbing since the middle of the century, in which a purée de pois often appeared alongside cutlets and in garnished dishes. The pinch of sugar is a period habit worth noting: garden peas were seasonal, sold by the peck in the pod. The entry costs them at 8d. a peck.