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Peas with Lettuce
1 head lettuce, the heart 1 small onion 1 teaspoon sugar cup water Put all ingredients into a stewpan; cover, and place over the fire and cook for 5 minutes, tossing the vegetables several times. Now draw the pan back where the contents will simmer slowly for half an hour.
The text as printed has lost pieces in transcription: the peas of the title never appear in the ingredient list, the water measure has no fraction in front of it, and a line reading "1 pint boiled potatoes" has drifted in from a neighbouring recipe. What survives is a recognisable version of the French method of braising peas in lettuce, and it can be reconstructed with confidence.
- The missing peasThe text gives no quantity. About 1 quart of peas in the pod (something over a cup shelled) is a reasonable guess for this amount of lettuce, onion and sugar, but it is a guess.
- "cup water"The fraction has dropped out. A half cup is a sensible reading for a covered pan of this size; the point is to steam the peas, not boil them, and almost no liquid should remain at the end.
- The stray potatoesIgnore the final line. Boiled potatoes have no role in this dish and appear to have drifted in from a neighbouring recipe.
- "Draw the pan back"On a coal range the cook slid the pan off the hot plate toward the cooler edge. On a modern burner this is the lowest setting, or the barest tremble of liquid, with the lid kept on.
- The lettuce heartUse the tight pale centre of a butterhead or romaine, shredded or quartered. The outer leaves are too watery and too bitter for this; save them for a salad. The lettuce is there for moisture and sweetness and will collapse to almost nothing.
- TimingHalf an hour suits the mature, starchy shelled peas of a market garden in season. Modern shelling peas need only a few minutes, and frozen peas less still; either will turn khaki and mealy if held for thirty.
- Butter and saltNeither is listed, which is more likely an omission than intent. A tablespoon of butter added with the vegetables and a good pinch of salt at the end bring the dish into line with the usual published versions of the method.
- YieldOn the quantities suggested above, three or four as a side dish. It is meant to be eaten hot and immediately; the peas dull quickly on standing.
This is the American household version of petits pois à la française, in which young peas are braised with shredded lettuce, a small onion and sugar rather than boiled in salted water. The lettuce is not a vegetable in its own right here but a source of moisture, so the peas cook in their own steam and keep their sweetness. The method is generally traced to French kitchen practice of the nineteenth century and reached American cooks through the flood of French-influenced cookery writing that followed. What it asks for is modest: the heart of a head of lettuce and a spoon of sugar to stretch a small quantity of peas.