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Peas, Green, Boiled
Choose peas which are young and freshly gathered. Do not shell them until just before they are to be boiled. To boil a quart of peas, put two quarts of water into a saucepan, and with it a quarter of an ounce of salt. Let it boil, and skim it well, then throw in the peas, and let them boil quickly, without being covered, until they are tender. As soon as this point is reached, take them at once off the fire, or they will quickly break, and their appearance be spoilt. Drain them, put them into a clean saucepan with three ounces of fresh butter, sprinkle a little salt and white sugar upon them, and shake them over the fire until the butter is melted. Serve immediately. A bunch of mint is frequently thrown into the water with the peas; but before doing this it is well to ascertain if the flavour is liked, as some persons have a strong objection to it. Instead of being shaken up with butter, green peas are sometimes served with a handful of finely-chopped mint strewn over them in the tureen, pats of fresh butter being served separately in a cooler. Time to boil young fresh peas, a quarter of an hour; large old ones, twenty-five minutes or more. Probable cost of garden peas when in full season, 8d. per peck; field peas, 4d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A clear Victorian method whose only real problem is the clock. Everything else translates directly.
- The timing is the hingeFifteen minutes will reduce modern garden peas to grey mush. Young shelled peas need 3-5 minutes in fast-boiling water, and frozen peas 2-3 minutes from frozen. The book's timings suit peas picked at a larger, starchier stage than the shelled or frozen peas now sold.
- A quart of peasThis means shelled peas, roughly 1½ lb (about 600-650 g). You will need something in the region of 3 lb of peas in the pod to get there.
- The saltA quarter of an ounce is about 7 g, a generous teaspoon, in two quarts of water. That is a mild seasoning by modern standards; salt more generously if you want the peas seasoned through.
- ButterThree ounces is 85 g, a generous amount for this quantity and part of why the finished dish reads so richly. Half that still coats the peas.
- Uncovered, and off the heat at onceBoth instructions are sound and worth keeping. The open pan keeps the colour bright, and peas left sitting in hot water go on cooking and split their skins.
- Shell lateAlso still true. Shelled peas lose sweetness quickly as sugars convert to starch, which is precisely why frozen peas, blanched within hours of picking, often taste better than market pods.
- Cost and yieldA peck is a dry measure of two gallons, here of unshelled pods. The stated eightpence is of purely historical interest. As written the dish serves four to five as a side.
Cassell's places boiled peas among the plainest of English vegetable cookery, and the recipe's real subject is freshness: the insistence on late shelling and immediate service reflects a period when peas were sold by the peck in the pod and lost their sugars on the way home from market. The pairing with mint is long established in English cookery, and the book presents it as a frequent addition while still allowing for the diner who dislikes it. The price note distinguishing garden peas from field peas at half the cost suggests a two-tier vegetable: the tender sorts for the table, the coarser field crop grown largely for drying and for feed.