Green Pease (No. 134)

The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's ... · Kitchiner, William · 1817
Source
The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual
Time
Cook: 20 min Total: 20 min
Yield
2.0 – 3.0 servings
Status
success · extracted 13 days ago
Not a recipe
No
Ingredients (11)
Instructions (12)
  1. Pass the pease through a riddle or coarse sieve to separate large from small.
  2. For a peck of pease, set on a sauce-pan with a gallon of water.
  3. When the water boils, add the pease and a tablespoonful of salt.
  4. Skim the water well.
  5. Keep the pease boiling quickly for twenty to thirty minutes, depending on their age and size.
  6. Test for doneness by tasting a spoonful.
  7. When done, drain on a hair-sieve.
  8. Optional: To butter the pease, place them in a pie-dish, add small bits of butter, cover with another dish, and toss to melt the butter through.
  9. Serve plain or buttered.
  10. If serving plain, send melted butter in a sauce-tureen to the table.
  11. Optional: Boil a few sprigs of mint with the pease.
  12. Optional: To garnish with mint, boil a few sprigs separately.
Original Text
Green Pease.164-*—(No. 134.) Young green pease, well dressed, are among the most delicious delicacies of the vegetable kingdom. They must be young; it is equally indispensable that they be fresh gathered, and cooked as soon as they are shelled for they soon lose both their colour and sweetness. [165]If you wish to feast upon pease in perfection, you must have them gathered the same day they are dressed, and put on to boil within half an hour after they are shelled. Pass them through a riddle, i. e. a coarse sieve, which is made for the purpose of separating them. This precaution is necessary, for large and small pease cannot be boiled together, as the former will take more time than the latter. For a peck of pease, set on a sauce-pan with a gallon of water in it; when it boils, put in your pease, with a table-spoonful of salt; skim it well, keep them boiling quick from twenty to thirty minutes, according to their age and size. The best way to judge of their being done enough, and indeed the only way to make sure of cooking them to, and not beyond, the point of perfection, or, as pea-eaters say, of “boiling them to a bubble,” is to take them out with a spoon and taste them. When they are done enough, drain them on a hair-sieve. If you like them buttered, put them into a pie-dish, divide some butter into small bits, and lay them on the pease; put another dish over them, and turn them over and over; this will melt the butter through them; but as all people do not like buttered pease, you had better send them to table plain, as they come out of the sauce-pan, with melted butter (No. 256) in a sauce-tureen. It is usual to boil some mint with the pease; but if you wish to garnish the pease with mint, boil a few sprigs in a sauce-pan by themselves. See Sage and Onion Sauce (No. 300), and Pea Powder (No. 458); to boil Bacon (No. 13), Slices of Ham and Bacon (No. 526), and Relishing Rashers of Bacon (No. 527). N.B. A peck of young pease will not yield more than enough for a couple of hearty pea-eaters; when the pods are full, it may serve for three. Mem. Never think of purchasing pease ready-shelled, for the cogent reasons assigned in the first part of this receipt.
Notes
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