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New Potatoes and Peas
Boil new potatoes and new shelled peas separately. When both are tender, combine them, butter generously, add a little cream, salt and pepper and minced parsley. Mix around in pan, pour into serving dish and serve with the ham from table.
A plain spring side dish that lives or dies on the timing of two vegetables cooked apart and married at the last minute. Nothing here is obscure, but the proportions and the finish are left entirely to the cook.
- Cook separately, and mean itPotatoes want roughly 12-18 minutes in well-salted water depending on size; young shelled peas only a few minutes, longer if they are older and starchier. Cooked in one pot the peas overcook and collapse well before the potatoes give way, which is presumably why the original calls for two pots.
- QuantitiesNo amounts are given. For six as a side, figure about 2 lb small new potatoes and 2 lb peas in the pod, which shells out to roughly 2 cups. Frozen petits pois are an honest substitute and need only a minute.
- "Butter generously"Fairly read as 3-4 tablespoons for the quantity above, added off the heat so it emulsifies with the cream rather than splitting.
- The cream"A little" is a quarter cup at most. Heavy cream holds together; light cream or half-and-half can break if the pan is still over a burner.
- Skins on or offNew potatoes were commonly scraped rather than peeled, leaving them pale and thin-skinned. Scrubbing and leaving the skins is entirely acceptable now and saves the flesh from waterlogging.
- Mix around in panReturn the drained vegetables to the dry hot pan for a moment to steam off surface water before the butter goes in. Wet potatoes dilute the cream into something thin.
- ServingIt is written as an accompaniment to a served ham, so season on the light side; the ham brings the salt. Add the parsley at the very end so it stays green.