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French Peas Au Beurre
Open a pint can French peas, suppress all the water, plunge in a pint boiling water with a teaspoon salt and boil for three minutes; thoroughly drain, place in a sautoire with half ounce butter, two saltspoons salt, half teaspoon sugar and two saltspoons white pepper; gently toss while cooking for two minutes. Dress on a vegetable dish and serve.
A two-step method for canned peas: a brief blanch to wash off the canning liquor, then a fast toss in seasoned butter. The whole thing takes five minutes.
- "Suppress all the water"A literal translation of the French supprimer — drain off and discard the canning liquid entirely. It carries the tinny, sulphurous note the blanching step is meant to remove.
- French peasPetits pois, the very small early-picked variety, sold canned in French style. A can of ordinary garden peas will work but is starchier and larger; frozen petits pois are closer to the original in size and sweetness and need only the butter stage.
- SautoireA straight-sided sauté pan, wider than deep. Any skillet that lets the peas sit in a single layer will do.
- SaltspoonA quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons is half a teaspoon of salt, and the same again of white pepper — enough pepper to be assertive, so start with less and adjust.
- Salt twice, taste onceCanned peas are already brined, the blanching water takes a teaspoon of salt, and another half teaspoon goes in with the butter. Taste after the butter goes in rather than following the amounts blind.
- TimingThree minutes in boiling water is plenty for peas that came out of a can already cooked. Longer and they slump and lose colour.
- Butter quantityHalf an ounce is one tablespoon for a pint of peas — a gloss rather than a sauce. Doubling it gives a richer dish.
- YieldA pint can makes roughly three small side servings.
This is the plainest of the French pea preparations, alongside the better-known petits pois à la française — peas braised with lettuce, tiny onions and butter. Canned French peas were a prized import in American cities around 1900, and the French canning trade graded peas by size, the smallest grades commanding the highest prices. Discarding the packing liquid and blanching before saucing puts the seasoning in the cook's hands rather than the canner's, which remains the most useful thing here.