The French invariably cook peas with a little onion and some finely shredded lettuce leaves in the pan, and country folks usually like a little salt pork with them, à la bonne femme. When done this way they are often the main dish of a meal that may start with soup and finish with a simple dessert. Here are two favorite à la's:
Pois à la Française
Put 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add 6 tiny spring onions, 5 or 6 leaves of lettuce, shredded, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 3 sprigs of parsley tied in a fagot with 3 sprigs chervil (if obtainable). Add 2 generous cups freshly shelled peas, mix all together, and add ½ cup water. Bring to a boil, cover closely, and cook rapidly for about 25 minutes, or until the peas are almost done. The water should be almost cooked away with 2 or 3 tablespoons left in the pan. Remove the fagot and take the pan from the fire. Cream 1 tablespoon butter with ½ teaspoon flour and add to the peas. Return the pan to the fire, shaking it to roll the peas around until the butter and flour mixture has combined with the liquid. As soon as it reaches the boil again, remove from the fire and serve.
Petits Pois à la Bonne Femme
Parboil ¼ pound diced salt pork or bacon for 5 minutes in water to cover, and drain. Put 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan and add the pork dice and 10 tiny spring onions. Cook until the pork dice and onions are golden-brown. Add 3 or 4 green lettuce leaves, shredded, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon flour, and mix all together well. Add 4 cups freshly shelled peas, 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons sugar, and a fagot of 3 sprigs parsley and 2 sprigs chervil tied together. Bring to a boil, cover closly, and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the peas are done. Remove the fagot and serve.
Green beans, like peas, should be picked when still young, tender, and succulent. Never leave them on the vines to get large, overripe, and tough. At the market, they, too, should have a fresh green color and snap in two with moist crispness. Since most of the beans grown today are stringless, it is not necessary to tear the string off each side. Just cut off the ends, and either cut them into inch-long pieces or “French” them. Frenching is slicing them lengthwise into two pieces—or three if the bean is large—and then cutting each slice across the center to make two pieces.
In France, beans, like other vegetables, were seldom boiled to be served dressed with butter. That was called à l'anglaise and was usual in hotels catering to English guests. The French like the blending of several flavors, especially with a bit of salt pork and a hint of onion and parsley. To beans they like to add a few potatoes with the result that they had a meal—or at least the main course of it—in this vegetable dish. Green beans lyonnaise and green beans paysanne are two examples of this type of cookery.
Haricots Verts Lyonnaise
Wash and remove the ends from 1 ½ pounds young green beans and cut in inch pieces or French them by slicing lengthwise and then once across. If very small, leave them whole. Bring 1 quart water with 1 teaspoon salt to a boil, add the beans, and cook for about 20 minutes, or until they are tender. Drain. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, add 2 medium-sized onions, finely chopped, and cook until the onion starts to turn golden. Sauté the beans in the butter, shaking the pan to mix them well with butter and onions. Correct the seasoning and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.
Haricots Verts Paysanne
Wash and remove the ends from 1 ½ pounds young green beans and cut as desired. Parboil ½ cup diced salt pork or bacon in water to cover for 5 minutes and drain. Put 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan, add the pork or bacon dice, and cook until they are golden-brown. Remove the dice and reserve. Add 2 medium-sized onions, finely chopped, to the fat in the pan and cook until they start to turn golden. Add 4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped, 2 potatoes, cut in large dice, ¾ teaspoon salt, a little pepper, a generous ½ cup water, the beans, and the browned pork dice. Bring to a boil, cover the pan, and cook slowly for about 30 minutes, or until the beans are cooked. There should be just a little liquid left in the pan to be served with the beans.
Both carrots and turnips grow very, very quickly on French soil which along with the climate seems particularly favorable to all root crops. They mature so rapidly they hardly have a chance to get tough or woody. The carrots grown on the farms outside Paris are small and quite round, a variety called “jardinière.” They are generally used for the garniture around meat and poultry and are cooked and glazed like the carrots in the recipe for peas and carrots à la crème. The important point to remember in cooking carrots is to use very little water and very little salt. Too much salt can spoil their fine flavor.
The turnips are just cut in dice or sliced or, if very small, left whole, boiled in salted water until done, for about 20 minutes, and then sautéed, with a sprinkling of a little sugar, in butter until they are glazed and a golden color.
Spinach, because of its long season of abundance, is not always considered a spring vegetable. But it is certainly at its best in the spring, as anyone knows who has ever eaten the tender and delicately flavored first picking of the spring. This vegetable is served in an endless number of ways, often combined with meats, poultry, fish, and eggs, and just as often made into soups, soufflés, and molded rings. A dish that has spinach as part of it is called “florentine.” Thus, poached eggs on a bed of spinach are poached eggs florentine.
Spinach requires the most careful washing because the soil which hides between the leaves seems to resent all efforts to dislodge it. After separating the leaves and cutting off the large, coarse stems, wash and wash in water after water. When no grit settles in the bottom of the pan, you can be pretty sure it has been washed enough.
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