=To Boil Peas= (_Green Peas_).--The one way to cook an English
marrow-fat pea in perfect condition is to boil it. Take one peck of
peas, shell them, and without loss of time put them into a saucepan of
boiling water with one tablespoonful of salt, a piece of soda no larger
than a pea, and a sprig of mint, as soon as the water comes to the
boiling point again, draw the pan back, so that the peas may not cook
too fast or they will jump out of their jackets; this they will do if
there is too much soda in the water.
Boil for twenty minutes to half an hour, pour into a hot colander,
heap up on a drainer, put a piece of fresh butter on the top, cover the
dish, and send them to table perfect. This is if the peas are grown in
your own garden.
If the peas are bought, and probably field grown, put two lumps of
sugar in the water--this will improve their flavour; they will also
require boiling a little longer.
=Pease Pudding= (_Split Peas_).--Soak half a pint of split peas, wash,
and sort them over. Dip a pudding-cloth in boiling water, flour it
well, put in the peas, and tie up loosely, allowing room for them to
swell, and boil for three hours. Serve with piquant sauce.
=Green Pea Salad.=--Drain a small can of peas, or one pint fresh-boiled
green peas; add a little pepper and salt, and one and a half cups of
broken walnut meats, moisten with mayonnaise dressing, and serve on a
bed of lettuce leaves.
=Mashed Split Peas.=--Soak a pint of split peas overnight, drain, cover
with cold water, add a pinch of soda, and cook slowly for three hours
or more. Strain and press the peas through a sieve, season with salt
and pepper, moisten with boiling milk, and beat until smooth. Turn into
a buttered baking dish and bake for one hour; serve in the same dish.
=Pea Chowder.=--Prepare according to the directions given for baked
mashed peas. Add to the peas a can of corn, a cupful of milk, salt and
pepper to season; cover, and cook slowly for thirty minutes, and then
add a tablespoonful of butter, and serve.
=Purée of Green Peas.=--Shell four pounds of fresh green peas when
they are getting old; put them in an earthenware pot, cover them with
cold water, and boil for half an hour or longer with a sprig of mint.
Take out one cupful of peas, rub the rest through a sieve, and mix in
an earthen pot, with one quart of milk, four ounces of butter, and two
tablespoonfuls of flour. Stir until the soup is thick. Add a pinch of
salt and grated nutmeg, and lastly the whole peas, and serve hot.
=Peas en Croustâdes.=--Boil a quart of green peas with a sprig of mint
until tender twenty minutes to half an hour. Make a sauce of one cupful
of milk, one tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of three eggs, well
beaten, salt and pepper to season. Mix with the peas and fill timbâle
shells or croustâdes. These are made by cutting stale bread in blocks,
hollowing out the centres, and toasting or frying the shells thus made.
Half a cupful of boiled carrots cut into dice, fried in butter, and
seasoned with a few drops of lemon juice may be added to the peas.
=Pea Cakes= (_Dried Peas_).--Boil three cupfuls of peas in salted water
until tender, and put through a sieve, seasoning with salt, pepper, and
butter. Make a batter of one cupful of milk, two beaten eggs, and half
a cupful of flour sifted with half a teaspoonful of baking powder. Stir
the pulp into the batter, mixing thoroughly, and fry by spoonfuls in
deep fat.
=Curry of Green Peas and Potatoes.=--Two or more parboiled potatoes,
cut into dice, a pint of boiled green peas, an onion chopped very
finely, an apple peeled and chopped in small dice, a teaspoonful
of curry powder, a tablespoonful of mixed pickles chopped, and a
tablespoonful of chutney. Put two ounces of butter in a saucepan, add
the chopped onion and curry powder, cook slowly, stirring frequently
till the onion is quite tender; stir in a tablespoonful of flour, add a
breakfast-cupful of vegetable stock, or water and milk in equal parts.
Let all simmer together for five minutes, add the peas, potatoes,
apples, pickles, and chutney, draw to one side, and simmer slowly for
twenty minutes or longer. Serve on a very hot dish with a border of
boiled rice.
=Sauté Green Peas.=--Boil a pint of shelled peas in a stewpan in a
quart of boiling water; add a very little green mint, a teaspoonful of
salt and a pinch of moist sugar, when the peas are tender, about twenty
minutes, drain the water from them and add half an ounce of fresh
butter, and a pinch of caster sugar and a little pepper, toss them over
the fire for a few minutes and serve.
=Petits Pois= (_Bottled Peas_).--Put the peas into a saucepan, with a
lump of butter and a little salt. Place on the fire, and stir with a
wooden spoon; add ten or twelve very tiny onions and the small heart
of a lettuce. Simmer for an hour without water, add a little sugar and
more butter, and serve.
=Boiled Dried Peas.=--Wash the peas, and soak them in water for twelve
hours; then drain off the water and put them into boiling water with a
little salt and a pinch of soda; keep the pan on the side of the fire,
and simmer for two hours; drain them, and put them in a clean saucepan,
with one ounce of butter, and a little pepper and salt, scatter some
finely chopped parsley over them, and serve very hot.
=Green Pea Omelette.=--Make an omelette in the usual way, adding two or
three tablespoonfuls of milk and two or three drops of onion juice; put
two tablespoonfuls of young boiled peas into the middle of the omelette
when finished and fold over on a very hot dish garnished with young
boiled peas.
=Bottle Peas.=--Fill large-mouthed glass bottles with young, freshly
gathered shelled peas; add a good teaspoonful of salt and half a gill
of water, cold; screw on the metal tops tightly, and tie a wisp of
straw round each bottle to prevent them cracking each other before
putting them in a stock pot filled up with hot water; boil fast for
half an hour, then take them off the fire. When the bottles are cold,
test them whether any of them leak; keep the bottles in a dry, cool
place.
POTATO (_Solanum tuberosum. Solanaceæ_).
In the small garden the early potato is the only one worth finding room
for. As a rule the main crop potato can be bought as cheaply as it can
be grown, and as good. But a newly dug young potato from one’s own
patch is incomparably better than the product of the Channel Islands as
it reaches the table.
Good, wholesome, light, rich soil will grow a good early potato. Last
year’s celery bed will make good ground for either peas or potatoes,
but to grow potatoes well, the ground needs plenty of manure. We give
it rather an extra dose in the small garden, because our economy of
space makes it necessary to grow the Brussels sprouts between the
potato rows.
The gardener will learn by experiment what variety suits his soil best,
but one with dwarf, compact haulm is to be preferred on account of the
sprouts, which will have to fight for their share of light and air for
a good month. Myatt’s Early Ashleaf is such a variety; but whatever the
kind chosen, the tubers should be placed, early in February, in a light
place exposed to full sun, but protected from frost. This will induce
them to start into growth, and push up dark green or purple shoots
that are plump and sturdy. A sprinkling with tepid water hastens the
process, but they must not be kept watered. On no account must they be
allowed to shoot forth in the dark, or lank anæmic growth will result
that will be perfectly useless.
As Brussels sprouts may have to grow among the potatoes, the rows
must be thirty inches asunder. Do not plant with a dibber--it results
in uneven growth--but open trenches with the hoe across the ground.
These should be four inches deep. The seed potatoes should be cut, the
larger tubers making into two or more sets, each with a good shoot on
it, or at least a plump and promising “eye,” but even the small ones
should have a piece cut away in order to promote the rapid decay of the
substance of the tuber, and its sending its goodness into root and top.
The sets should be placed a foot apart in the trenches and the earth
returned, either with the hoe, or merely scuffled in with the feet.
As soon as the green shoots show sufficiently above the ground to
indicate the rows clearly, earth should be drawn up to them from either
side, ridging up the rows, and covering the green shoots about an inch.
No time is to be lost in performing this operation, as by this means
the tender shoots will be protected from the spring frosts. A week or
ten days later this will have to be repeated, and early in May, say
about the 10th, it must be done a third and final time.
Nothing now remains but to wait for cropping time, and to hope no late
frost may cut the tops down. The first dish of young potatoes should be
dug in the second week of June, and by the 10th of July the crop should
be ready for lifting. Do not wait for the haulm to die down before
doing this, but as soon as the tubers have come to their full growth
choose a fine, hot, dry day, and dig the whole crop up. Shake the
potatoes free from adhering soil, and clear away the haulm, and leave
them lying on the sun-baked ground for several hours for the tender
skins to harden before removing them to the tool-shed floor, where they
may lie not more than a couple of days, secure from dew or rain, to
ripen off before storing.
The haulm should at once be burned with other rubbish, as we do not
want it to lie about and rot, and form excellent harbourage for germs
of the potato disease, which may linger in the ground for years.
Main crop potatoes are planted in the same way as early ones, the rows
should never be less than thirty inches apart, and the sets should be
fifteen to eighteen inches in the row; when the stems are well up they
should be earthed up, and this operation may be repeated. The crop
will be ready for lifting in September or October, according to the
variety. The potato disease, which has destroyed so many thousands of
tons of tubers, can be almost certainly guarded against. The potato
tops should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture in mid-June, and again six
weeks later, whether the disease has manifested itself or not. This
is practically a specific, and in some of our colonies a farmer who
neglected this precaution, and so allowed his crop to become infected
and infectious, would have an exceedingly poor time when he met his
brother growers; it ought to be so in England.