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Fresh Peas with Mint
Plunge a pint of fresh, tender peas in quart boiling water with half teaspoon salt and boil forty minutes. Drain on a sieve, then place in a sauteuse with half teaspoon freshly chopped mint leaves, one ounce butter, two saltspoons salt, three saltspoons sugar and one saltspoon white pepper, toss them until well thickened. Dress on a vegetable dish and serve.
A straightforward buttered pea dish whose only real problem is the cooking time, which belongs to an era of older, starchier market peas.
- The forty minutesFresh shelled peas today are tender in 2-4 minutes in boiling water, and frozen peas in about 2. Forty minutes will leave grey, collapsed peas with no sweetness left; boil until just tender and bright, then drain.
- A pint of peasThe measure is by volume of shelled peas, roughly 2 cups or about 10 oz, which means buying around 2 lb of peas in the pod. A 10 oz bag of frozen petits pois substitutes directly.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So the finishing seasoning is 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3/4 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 teaspoon white pepper. The sugar may be compensating for peas that have sat since picking, and can be cut or dropped with very fresh or frozen peas.
- SauteuseA wide, shallow pan for tossing; in French usage the sauteuse has sloping sides (the straight-sided pan is the sautoir). Any wide skillet or saucepan works; the point is surface area for tossing rather than stirring.
- "Toss until well thickened"This means the butter and the moisture clinging to the peas emulsify into a light glaze, not that the peas cook further. Keep the heat moderate and the pan moving for under a minute; if it looks oily rather than glossy, add a spoonful of the cooking water.
- The mintHalf a teaspoon of chopped mint is modest by current taste. Add it at the very end, off the heat, so it stays green and aromatic rather than turning dull and hay-like.
- YieldServes three to four as a side dish.
Peas and mint is a pairing long associated with English cookery. The technique here is squarely French: boil separately, drain, then finish in butter in a sauteuse so the fat glazes rather than fries. The pinch of sugar is a tell about the period's supply chain -- garden peas convert their sugars to starch over hours to days after picking, and before quick transport and freezing, cooks are often said to have sweetened them back up and boiled them long to soften the toughened skins. Measures appear in saltspoons and pans by their French names, as in many cookery books of the period.