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Peas with Ham
(Piselli col prosciutto) Cut in two one or two young onions, according to the quantity of the peas and put them on the fire with oil and one thick slice of ham cut into small cubes. Brown until the ham is shrivelled; then put the peas in, season with a pinch of pepper and very little salt, mix and complete the cooking with broth, adding a little butter.
Before serving, throw the onion away.
A four-line braise that depends entirely on the quality of two things: the peas and the ham. The original assumes fresh peas shelled that morning and a broth pot already on the stove.
- The onion is a flavouring, not an ingredientIt goes in halved so it can be fished out whole at the end, the same logic as a bay leaf. Do not dice it — the point is perfume without texture, and the instruction to throw it away is the tell.
- "Ham" means prosciuttoThe Italian is prosciutto, and here it most likely means the salt-cured, air-dried kind rather than a wet-cured pink sandwich ham, though the book does not spell this out. A thick slice cut into cubes, roughly 3 oz for a pound of peas; pancetta is the closest easy substitute.
- Brown until shrivelledThis is the hinge. The cubes should render and crisp at the edges before the peas go in, which takes 5–8 minutes over medium heat and builds the only browned flavour in the dish.
- Very little salt, and mean itCured ham plus broth will carry the seasoning. Salt at the end, after tasting, or not at all.
- Broth quantityNone is given. Add enough to come about halfway up the peas — roughly 1/2 cup for a pound — and let it reduce to a glaze rather than a soup.
- Cooking timeFresh young peas need 8–10 minutes; a shelled pound of older peas may want 15. Frozen peas work well here but need 3–4 minutes only, added straight from the bag after the ham has browned.
- YieldA pound of shelled peas with the ham serves four as a side dish, two as a light supper with bread.
Maria Gentile's The Italian Cook Book (1919) was written for American households and uses a plain-spoken domestic style of short, conversational recipe. Peas braised with cured pork and an aromatic are common to most of the peninsula — Rome has piselli al prosciutto, and it is often said that the north tends toward butter and the south toward oil, a division this version hedges by using both. The instruction to discard the onion is generally taken as characteristic of the period's cooking, in which aromatics were often treated as seasoning to be removed, in the manner of a French bouquet garni, rather than eaten as part of the dish. The reliance on broth may suggest a household where a stockpot ran most days; no quantity is specified, and the cook was expected to ladle by eye.