No. 2745

Green Peas, Parisian Style—Small

Petits Pois fins a la Parisienne

Cook some small green peas in a pan or small copper vessel with salted water, a large green onion and a bunch of parsley; as soon as done, take out the parsley and onion, drain through a colander without refreshing and put the peas into a sautoir with a pinch of sugar and nutmeg, thickening with a little veloute sauce (No. 415); take the peas from the fire, toss well and dress in a vegetable dish, garnishing around with puff paste croutons.

← No. 2744 Green Peas, Housekeeper's Style Beans, Peas & Lentils No. 2746 Green Peas with Braised Lettuces →

For the Modern Kitchen

A brief Ranhofer vegetable course that depends on two things the original assumes you have on hand: very small peas and a made velouté. Everything else is timing.

The hinge: do not refreshRanhofer specifically says to drain without refreshing, meaning no plunge into cold water. The peas go straight from the boiling salted water into the sautoir, still hot, so the velouté clings and the dish reaches the table warm.
"Petits pois fins"These are small, young, sweet peas, not full-sized garden peas. Frozen petits pois are a better match than most fresh supermarket peas and need only two to four minutes in the boiling water; older shelled peas may take eight to ten and will still be starchier.
Velouté (No. 415)A blond roux moistened with white veal or chicken stock, simmered and strained. Two to three tablespoons is enough for a pound of peas — it should coat, not submerge. A well-reduced chicken stock finished with a little butter will do the same work if you are not making the mother sauce.
The large green onionProbably not a slender scallion but a young onion pulled while still green; Ranhofer does not specify. One whole trimmed onion and a bunch of parsley flavor the water and are then taken out and discarded.
SautoirA straight-sided shallow pan, wide enough that the peas sit in a single layer or two. Width matters more than depth here, since the peas are tossed with the sauce rather than stewed down in it.
Off the heat before tossing"Take the peas from the fire, toss well" is deliberate. Velouté held over direct heat with the peas will tighten and the peas will wrinkle; the tossing is done in the residual heat of the pan.
Puff paste croûtonsPuff paste croutons -- Small fleurons: crescents or triangles of puff pastry baked until well risen and dry, arranged around the rim just before serving. Ranhofer gives no baking instruction here, so a hot oven (around 400F) is a modern suggestion rather than his. They soften within minutes of contact with the sauce, so set them in place at the table end of the work.
Seasoning and yieldA pinch of sugar and a scrape of nutmeg, no more. Roughly three pounds of peas in the pod give about a pound shelled, which serves four as a vegetable course.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, in two separate spells, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially his working repertoire set down in numbered entries, cross-referenced to one another the way a professional kitchen actually operates, giving No. 415 rather than a recipe for it here. The book gives several treatments of green peas in a row, and the differences between them are small on purpose. "À la Parisienne" in this period generally signals a white, delicately sauced finish rather than any particular Paris origin, and the puff paste fleurons around the dish are the sort of detail that marked restaurant service off from home cooking. The insistence on tiny peas reflects a real seasonal luxury: before freezing, petits pois meant peas picked young and cooked the same day, and their brief season was a fixed point in the spring menu.