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Carrots and Peas (Cook the carrots add an equal)
Cook the carrots; add an equal quantity of cooked peas; season with butter, pepper and salt, or beat both together in a cream sauce,
A one-line loose-leaf note rather than a full recipe, written for a cook who already knew how to boil a vegetable. The only decisions left are size, timing and the sauce.
- QuantitiesNothing is specified beyond "equal quantity." About 1 lb carrots and 1 lb shelled or frozen peas fills a serving dish for four to six.
- Cut the carrots to match the peasThe recipe gives no cut. A small dice, or the little balls a melon cutter gives, keeps the two vegetables of a size; coins or batons make a rather different dish.
- Cook them separatelyThe recipe assumes it: the peas go in already cooked. Diced carrots need roughly 8-12 minutes in salted water; fresh peas 2-4, frozen barely a minute.
- Peas of the periodThe recipe specifies only 'cooked peas'; fresh-shelled, home-canned and commercially canned were all in use. Frozen peas are the closest modern stand-in for fresh, and hold up better here than canned, which collapse into the sauce.
- "Beat both together in a cream sauce"Read this as combining rather than whipping. A thin white sauce of 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour and 1 cup milk or light cream will coat about 2 lb of vegetables.
- Drain hard before saucingBoiled vegetables carry a surprising amount of water, which thins the cream sauce into a puddle on the plate. Let them steam dry in the colander a minute first.
- ServingA side dish for roast or boiled meat. The sauced version would also suit a pastry case or timbale.
Carrots and peas together are old enough that no one owns the idea, and the pairing became a fixture of American and British household cookery in the late nineteenth century. Loose-leaf cook books like this one were sold as binders with removable pages, and entries were kept telegraphically short. The alternative given here is plain butter or a cream sauce, and the same mixture might be spooned into a pastry shell or molded in a timbale.