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Carrots with Green Peas
1 1/2 pints diced carrots 1 can peas 1 pint sauce for vegetables Prepare the carrots the same as for creamed carrots. Cook in boiling water until tender, adding salt one-half hour before they are done. Drain and prepare the sauce for vegetables, using all milk for the liquid. Drain and warm the peas, and add to the vegetables and sauce. Bring to the boiling point, and serve.
A cream-sauce vegetable dish from an era when a pint of white sauce counted as the protein on the plate. The only real trap is the cooking time carried over from an age of coarse winter carrots.
- The hinge: stop cooking the carrots earlyThe recipe salts the water half an hour before the carrots are done, which implies a long boil suited to tough storage carrots. Diced modern carrots are tender in 8 to 12 minutes; salt the water at the start.
- 1 1/2 pints diced carrotsThree cups, or about 1 lb of carrots once trimmed and diced. Cut them a consistent 1/2 inch so they finish together.
- "1 can peas"The recipe does not say what size, and period can sizes varied; assume something between 15 and 20 oz, giving roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups drained. Canned peas are already fully cooked, so they want warming only; frozen peas substitute directly and need about two minutes.
- "Sauce for vegetables"A cross-reference to a sauce given elsewhere in the book, made here with milk rather than vegetable water. A standard medium white sauce for 1 pint is 4 tbsp flour worked into 4 tbsp melted butter, cooked a minute or two without colouring, then 2 cups warm milk whisked in and simmered until it coats a spoon. Season with salt and pepper.
- "Bring to the boiling point"Take that literally and no further. A flour-thickened milk sauce held at a boil will scorch on the pan bottom and thin out, and the peas will collapse.
- YieldRoughly 6 to 7 cups finished, serving six to eight as a side. Serve on toast, in a pastry shell, or over rice to make it read as a course.