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Peas and Potatoes
Take the knuckle end of a ham which has 2 pounds or more of meat still on it; wash thoroughly, cut off all the rind, put in a saucepan with 3 quarts of cold water, heat slowly and simmer until the meat is tender. Transfer the ham to a dish and boil the liquid rapidly until reduced to 1 quart. Add I 1/2 pints of shelled green peas and 15 new potatoes of medium size which have been washed and scraped. Boil slowly until the two vegetables are tender. Cut the ham in thin slices and arrange it round the edge of a platter.
Turn the peas on the dish; in the center push them aside and lay in the potatoes. Sprinkle with a little white pepper and send at once to the table.
A one-pot ham dinner that depends entirely on the ham liquor, which is also where it can go wrong. Read the note on salt before you reduce anything.
- Salt is the hingeReducing 3 quarts of ham broth to 1 quart concentrates whatever salt the cure left behind by threefold, and how salty that is depends entirely on the ham you start with. Taste the liquid as it reduces and stop early, or dilute with water, if it turns harsh; the vegetables cook in it and cannot be rescued afterwards.
- The cutThe knuckle end means the shank or hock end of a bone-in cured ham. A smoked ham hock with 2 lb of meat on it is the closest current equivalent; ask a butcher, since supermarket hocks are usually much smaller and mostly bone.
- Simmering time"Until the meat is tender" is roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare simmer for a 2 lb shank. It should pull from the bone but still slice.
- Peas1 1/2 pints shelled is about 3 cups, which takes 3 lb of peas in the pod. Frozen peas work and need only 4 to 5 minutes at the end; fresh young peas take 6 to 10.
- Cook the vegetables in stagesBoiling peas and potatoes together as written overcooks one or the other. Give the new potatoes 15 to 20 minutes, then add the peas for the last few minutes.
- New potatoesFifteen medium new potatoes is about 2 lb. "Scraped" means rubbing the thin skin off with a knife or a rough cloth rather than peeling; small waxy potatoes left whole hold their shape best.
- White pepperThe recipe does not say why, but the usual reason for specifying it is that no dark flecks show against the peas and potatoes. Black pepper will do if the look does not concern you, though it tastes noticeably different.
- YieldServes 4 to 6 as a main course. The dish is meant to go to the table hot and be eaten at once; the potatoes turn waxy and dull on standing.
This is thrift cookery of a familiar kind: the knuckle, an inexpensive cut, is boiled until tender, and the liquor it yields becomes the cooking medium for the vegetables, so nothing is thrown away and no separate stock is needed. Peas and new potatoes were both early-summer crops, and pairing them with cured pork is old practice across northern Europe and the American South alike, where the smoked hock seasoning a pot of vegetables is still standard. The presentation instructions, with the sliced ham ringed round the platter and the potatoes nested in the centre of the peas, show how much care went into making an economical dish look composed on the table.