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Green-Pea-and-Potato Salad
Mix equal parts of cold cooked peas and potatoes cut in very small cubes; season with salt and pepper, and serve as green-pea salad.
A two-line recipe that depends entirely on the entry it points back to, so the first job is filling in what the original assumes you already know.
- "Serve as green-pea salad"The dressing and presentation are borrowed from the green-pea salad entry this points back to, which is not repeated here; some dressing (French dressing or mayonnaise in books of this type) is clearly assumed. Without that step this is just diced vegetables in a bowl.
- Cut size is the point"Very small cubes" means potato dice no larger than a shelled pea, roughly 1/4 inch. The salad reads as one thing rather than two only if the two components are the same size.
- PotatoesBoil whole in their skins, then peel and dice while barely warm; they absorb dressing far better than cold ones and hold their edges better than potatoes diced before boiling. Waxy varieties keep their shape.
- PeasThe book assumes fresh shelled peas, cooked and cooled. Frozen peas are the practical substitute and need only two or three minutes in salted water, then an immediate cold rinse to keep the color.
- Season while warmThe recipe seasons the cold mixture, but cold cooked potato takes up very little salt or dressing, so it is worth salting and peppering the potato while it is still barely warm.
- Quantity and yieldThe recipe specifies only equal parts. About 2 cups each of peas and diced potato, with dressing to bind, makes roughly four salad-course servings.
- TimingBest dressed within an hour or two of serving. Held overnight the potato loses texture and the peas dull to a gray-green.
This entry belongs to a family of "combination salads" that filled American cookbooks around 1900, when the salad course was still establishing itself in middle-class households — hence the instruction to "serve as green-pea salad" rather than repeating the method. The practical logic is a cook's logic: peas and potatoes were both garden-and-cellar staples, both were routinely boiled in quantity for dinner, and both left cold remnants that a bowl of French dressing could turn into a second, more fashionable dish.