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Green Pea Salad
Drain all liquid from a cup and a half of wellseasoned left-over green peas and chill them. When ready to prepare the salad, mix with the peas I 20 half a cup of young, tender carrot, grated raw, reserving a little to garnish the top. Cover with mayonnaise (see page 74), or cooked salad dressing (see page 75), and serve at once on crisp, white lettuce leaves.
A cold-plate salad built on cooked peas that have already been seasoned once, so taste before you dress it.
- QuantityA cup and a half of drained peas with half a cup of grated carrot makes two generous salads or four small side portions on lettuce.
- Left-over peasThe recipe assumes peas cooked and seasoned for an earlier meal. Frozen peas work if you cook them briefly in salted water, drain, and chill; canned peas are softer and may not hold their shape as well.
- Drain thoroughlyAny cooking liquid clinging to the peas will thin the mayonnaise into a puddle. Spread them on a towel-lined tray for a few minutes before chilling.
- Grating the carrotUse the coarse side of a box grater and grate it just before assembling. Raw carrot grated in advance dries out and darkens at the edges.
- Serve at onceThis is the hinge of the dish. Once the mayonnaise goes on, salt draws water from the carrot and the dressing slackens as it stands, so dress at the last minute.
- Cooked salad dressingThe alternative is the boiled type, typically thickened with egg and sometimes flour and sharpened with vinegar, common in period cookbooks and usually tangier and less rich than mayonnaise. The recipe itself is on page 75.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified because the peas were seasoned when first cooked. Taste a spoonful of the mixture before dressing and adjust.
Cookbooks of this kind, with chapters given over to using up left-over vegetables, were common in the period, and cold vegetables bound with mayonnaise or boiled dressing and set on lettuce were among the ways of handling yesterday's cooking.