Green Peas, English Style (1894)
Reader ratingsGreen peas boiled with a few mint leaves, then tossed with salt, sugar and pats of butter: Ranhofer’s petits pois à l’Anglaise from The Epicurean, 1894.
- Recipe makes
- 4 side servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Most of the time is bringing the water to a boil. Fresh peas take 4 to 8 minutes depending on their size and age; frozen peas take 2 to 3.
Buttered green peas in a porcelain vegetable dish.
The story behind the recipe
On Ranhofer’s printed menu for the Dickens dinner, the peas have a line of their own. Petits pois à l’Anglaise sit second among six entrées, after fillets of brant and before sweetbread croustades, artichokes, spinach and grouse cutlets named for Fenimore Cooper. James Parton, writing about the dinner that summer, didn’t mention them.
What made peas English?
On the same page of The Epicurean, Ranhofer prints peas in the French style right after the English ones, and the difference is mostly in the water. The French peas cook in a saucepan with a little cold water, a piece of butter, salt and a bunch of parsley, lid on, until the liquid has reduced, and are finished with kneaded butter and more butter in small bits, so that the liquid is entirely absorbed. The English peas are boiled in a full pan of salted water with a few mint leaves, drained, and only then meet their butter, with salt and a little sugar.
Ranhofer asks for something few kitchens have now: “an untinned copper vessel” for the boiling. He wants the butter mixed in “without stirring,” so the peas stay whole, and more butter laid on top in the dish.
Read more about this recipe
How close is this to 1868?
Only Ranhofer’s page, the one with the wrong year, puts peas at this dinner, and his recipe for them was printed in 1894. Peas English style turn up again and again in the book’s sample bills of fare.
Making it today
An ordinary stainless steel saucepan replaces the copper one; that is our choice. Ranhofer gives no amounts at all, so the weight of peas, the mint, the sugar and the butter are ours. He also prints a purée of the same peas pounded with a very thick béchamel (No. 409), itself built on half milk and half veal stock with a fried mirepoix and cooked for 25 minutes; this page keeps to the whole peas.
The peas sit among more than thirty dishes on Ranhofer’s menu, and the Dickens dinner at Delmonico’s gives the whole list, along with the two witnesses’ quarrel over the fish. For green vegetables finished in butter the way Escoffier did them, see French Beans (1907).
Boil some green peas in an untinned copper vessel containing boiling salted water and a few mint leaves; when cooked, drain and place them in a sautoir with salt, sugar and fresh butter, divided in small pats, mixing it into the peas without stirring them. Dress in a vegetable dish and lay small bits of butter on top.
Purée of Green Peas.—To obtain a purée pound the cooked and drained peas in a mortar, adding some very thick béchamel (No. 409); season with salt and sugar, press through a fine sieve, and return to the saucepan to boil; stir in some fine butter at the last moment.
Recipe makes: 4 side servings
Ingredients
For 4 side servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 4 side servings.
- Water8 cups
- Salt, for the water1 tbsp
- Fresh mint leaves4
- Shelled green peas, fresh or frozen1.25 lb
- Salt, for the peas1/2 tsp
- Sugar1/2 tsp
- Cold butter, cut in small pats3 tbsp
- Butter, for the top1 tbsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 8 cups water
- 1 tbsp salt, for the water
- 4 fresh mint leaves
- 1 1/4 lb shelled green peas, fresh or frozen
- 1/2 tsp salt, for the peas
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp cold butter, cut in small pats
- 1 tbsp butter, for the top
Equipment
Large saucepan
Colander- Wide sauté pan
- Warm vegetable dish
Instructions
Bring the water to a boil in the large saucepan with the salt for the water and the mint leaves.
Add the green peas and boil, uncovered, until just tender: 4 to 8 minutes for fresh peas, 2 to 3 minutes for frozen. Taste one to check.
Drain the peas in the colander and pick out the mint leaves.
Tip the peas into the wide sauté pan over low heat. Scatter over the salt for the peas, the sugar and the cold butter, and shake the pan gently until the butter melts and coats the peas, without stirring them with a spoon.
Turn the peas into the warm vegetable dish, dot them with the butter for the top and serve at once.
Nutrition
220calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 4 side servings
- Servings
- 4
Estimated per serving (4) from USDA FoodData Central values for green peas, butter and sugar.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scales freely. Use plenty of water so it comes back to the boil quickly after the peas go in.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Ranhofer gives no quantities; every amount here is ours. His untinned copper pan is replaced by an ordinary saucepan, the mint is picked out after draining (he doesn’t say whether to), and his purée of green peas, pounded with very thick béchamel (No. 409) and sieved, is not made here. Contains milk.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Charles Ranhofer, The Epicurean (New York, 1894), no. 2742, Green Peas, English Style; the dish listed as Petits pois à l’Anglaise on Delmonico’s menu for Charles Dickens
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Course
- Side dish
- Dish family
- Vegetables & Sides
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Main ingredient
- Vegetables
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- State banquet
- Season
- Spring