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Puree of Peas for Garnishing
Plunge a pint dried split green peas into a quart boiling water for five minutes. Drain, replace them in the saucepan with a quart water, one sliced carrot. one sliced onion, one sliced leek, one sliced branch celery, two branches parsley, one bean garlic and half a pound raw ham bones. Season with a teaspoon salt and half a teaspoon white pepper, cover the pan, boil for fifteen minutes, then set in the oven for one hour and a half. Remove, lift up the ham bones, then press the puree through a sieve into a basin and place it in a saucepan, adding half an ounce butter; stir well while heating on the fire for five minutes, remove and use as required.
A classic French-style pea purée, thick enough to pipe or spoon alongside a garnished dish rather than served as soup. Most of the work is unattended, and the only real decisions are the oven heat and how far to reduce it.
- "One bean garlic"Filippini's Frenchified English for a single clove of garlic (French une gousse d'ail), not a head. Peel it and leave it whole; it will break down and go through the sieve.
- Pint of split peasMeasured by volume, roughly two cups, or about a pound. With the quart of water this gives a stiff purée; loosen it with a little of the cooking liquid or stock if it sets too firm.
- The oven stageThe book gives no temperature at all, simply 'set in the oven'. A moderate oven, around 325F, covered, suits the purpose: slow, even heat with no scorching on the base, which is what a direct flame under a thick pea mash will give you.
- Cooking timeStart checking at 45 minutes in the oven; they are done when a pea crushes to nothing between finger and thumb. Undercooked peas will not pass a sieve.
- Ham bonesRaw ham bones from a butcher are the intent — a bone with some meat still on it. A smoked ham hock works, but it is saltier and more assertive; hold back the teaspoon of salt until after the bones come out and taste then.
- Pressing through a sieveA food mill on the fine plate does this in a minute and is closer to the original texture than a blender, which makes the purée gluey and pale. If you use a blender, still pass it through a sieve afterwards to catch pea skins and celery strings.
- The final five minutesStirring the puree over heat with the butter works the butter in and tightens it a little so it holds its shape on the plate. Stop when a spoon drawn through the bottom leaves a track that closes slowly.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield. A pint of dried peas cooked in a quart of water makes several cups of finished puree: plenty for garnishing a number of plates, or enough to serve four as a vegetable.
Garnish purées like this one belong to the professional kitchen of the late nineteenth century, where a repertoire of thick vegetable pastes stood ready to be spooned into tartlets, piped around a roast or used to bed a piece of meat. The vegetables here — carrot, onion, leek, celery, parsley, garlic — are the standard French aromatic base, and the ham bone supplies the pork note that has been paired with dried peas across Europe for centuries. Split green peas were among the cheapest storable proteins in the pantry, which is why they appear in both peasant soups and, dressed with butter and passed through a sieve, in the garnish section of a book like this. The International Cook Book was compiled by Alexander Filippini, long of Delmonico's in New York, and the terse instruction to "use as required" is the voice of a chef writing for other cooks who already know what the purée is for.