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Peas, French Method of Cooking
Boil till tender in slightly salted water and drain perfectly dry. The most careful cooks lay them on a piece of thin cloth to rid them entirely of moisture. Butter is then placed in a saucepan and when hot, but not yet browning, the vegetable is placed in the pan and stirred and heated until thoroughly buttered. It is then served as hot as possible.
This is a method rather than a formula, and the whole point of it is that the peas must be dry before they meet the butter. A few notes on quantities and timing, which the original leaves to the cook.
- QuantitiesFigure about 2 lb of peas in the pod, or 1 lb shelled, for four people, with 2 to 3 tablespoons butter. The peas should be coated and glossy, not swimming.
- Boiling timeFresh shelled garden peas need 2 to 4 minutes in the salted water. Older, starchier peas may take 6 to 8. The original says only 'till tender', so taste rather than time them.
- Frozen peasFrozen peas are blanched before freezing and need only a minute in boiling water, or none at all if they will be heated through in the butter.
- The drying stepThis is the hinge. Water clinging to the peas will bubble in the butter, cool the pan, and leave a thin greasy liquid instead of a coating. A clean tea towel or a couple of layers of paper towel does what the thin cloth did.
- "Hot but not yet browning"Melt the butter over medium heat and use it while it is foaming and still pale. Once it colours, the flavour turns nutty and the dish stops being the plain buttered peas intended here, though brown butter with peas is no hardship.
- ServingWarm the dish. Buttered peas lose their gloss as they cool and the butter congeals on the plate, which is why the original insists on serving them as hot as possible.
- Optional additionsA pinch of sugar in the boiling water flatters older peas, and a little chopped chervil stirred in with the butter suits the French tradition this recipe is named for; mint is the more English addition.
The "French method" here is essentially petits pois au beurre, and its distinguishing feature to an Anglo-American cook of the period was restraint: no flour, no cream sauce, no long stewing with a piece of salt pork. Butterick's cook book was published by the pattern company for a broad middle-class readership, and the instruction to dry the peas on a cloth is exactly the sort of fussy detail that marked a trained kitchen from a home one. Peas were also among the first vegetables to be sold canned in quantity in the late nineteenth century.