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To Boil Green Peas
Green peas, when gathered young, shelled just before they are cooked, and dressed properly, are amongst the most delicious of vegetables. If they are very unequal in size, they should be shaken through a coarse sieve, and the smaller ones put into the water ten minutes after the large ones. Throw them into plenty of fast-boiling water, to which a tablespoonful of salt has been added, and keep the pan uncovered until the peas are tender. Taste them to ascertain when they are sufficiently cooked. Drain the water from them. Put them into a clean pan with a slice of butter, a little salt, and a teaspoonful of sugar, and toss them over the fire a minute or two, then serve. A sprig of mint is often boiled with peas; this is by some considered an improvement, and by others quite the reverse.
Great care should be taken not to put much soda with peas. If the water is very hard, a tiny piece may be put in, but too much would quickly reduce them to a pulp. Time, according to the age and size: young green peas, fifteen or twenty minutes.
A Victorian method for fresh-shelled peas that holds up well, with one instruction to ignore and one timing to cut drastically.
- Skip the soda entirelyBicarbonate was added to hard water to keep peas bright green; it does so by degrading the cell walls, which is why the recipe warns they will turn to pulp. There is no reason to use it now — a squeeze of nothing at all and a short boil gives better colour and texture.
- Cut the time hardGenuinely young shelled peas need 2–4 minutes; frozen peas need 2 minutes or less. The recipe's fifteen to twenty minutes is far longer than a young pea wants, whatever it says. Taste early, as the recipe rightly instructs.
- Uncovered panLeaving the lid off is commonly explained as letting volatile acids escape rather than condensing back into the water, which is said to help hold the green. The recipe gives no reason for the instruction. Worth following.
- Salt quantityA tablespoon of salt is for a large pan of water — figure a tablespoon per 4 quarts. It seasons the peas from the outside in the short time they cook.
- "A slice of butter"Read this as 1 to 2 tablespoons for about a pound of shelled peas. Toss over low heat only long enough to coat; the pan is off duty as a cooking vessel by then.
- The sugarA teaspoon of sugar compensates for peas that have sat after picking, since their sugars convert to starch within hours. Fresh-picked or frozen peas rarely need it.
- Sorting by sizeThe coarse-sieve trick is still sound if you are shelling from the garden and the pods are mixed. With uniform commercial or frozen peas it is unnecessary.
- YieldA pound of pods gives roughly a cup of shelled peas — enough for two. Allow a pound of pods per person if peas are the main vegetable.