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Green Pea Salad
Drain through a colander a can of peas. Chop two apples fine with one medium sized cucumber. Mix lightly with the peas and one-half cup of coarsely chopped pecan or English walnut meats. Serve on crisp lettuce with mayonnaise.
A canned-pea salad of the sort that filled American luncheon menus between the wars. It needs almost no adjustment, but a few small choices decide whether it tastes fresh or dull.
- The can sizeCanned peas came in several sizes, and a modern 15-16 oz can yields roughly 1 1/2 cups drained, which suits the proportions here; buy one and use it all. Rinsing after draining removes the tinny brine flavour.
- Peas, if you preferFrozen peas, thawed and patted dry, stand in cup for cup and hold their shape better than canned. Do not cook them; the salad wants them cold and firm.
- The applesTwo apples to 1 1/2 cups of peas is a lot of apple, so choose a firm tart variety such as Granny Smith or Braeburn rather than a soft sweet one. Leave the peel on for colour and toss the cut pieces with a little lemon juice to stop them browning.
- CucumberA field cucumber with tough skin and large seeds should be peeled and seeded; alternatively substitute a whole English cucumber unpeeled. Salting the diced cucumber for ten minutes and blotting it dry keeps the salad from watering out under the dressing.
- "Mix lightly"This is the hinge. Peas break down into paste if stirred hard, and the salad turns grey-green. Fold with a spatula two or three times, no more, and dress it just before serving.
- MayonnaiseJarred mayonnaise is often thicker than a homemade or boiled dressing. Thin it with a spoonful of cream or lemon juice so it coats rather than clumps.
- YieldServes four as a luncheon salad on lettuce leaves, or six as a side. It does not keep; the apple softens and the cucumber weeps within a couple of hours.
Salads built on canned peas, chopped apple and nuts bound with mayonnaise were a fixture of American menu planning from roughly the 1910s through the 1940s, the era when reliable commercial canning and jarred mayonnaise together made a "salad course" possible in any household at any season. The combination echoes a Waldorf salad with peas standing in for the celery, and it shows the period's fondness for the crisp-plus-creamy contrast and for serving everything on a cup of lettuce. A salad like this one earns its place by being assembled in five minutes from a shelf staple and two things from the crisper.