Now Kevin is getting decidedly fed up of my going on about this, but yesterday, he was cooking a ham and I thought the perfect thing to go with it would be mushy peas, or squashy peas as we used to call them in our family.
I had managed to find a small box of quick soak marrowfat peas at Superstore and I remembered from when my mum used to make them (although my sister insists that it was my dad who used to do them) that you had to rinse them well after soaking and then watch them carefully when they were in the pan because they could quickly overboil spreading pea mush and froth all over the stove.
Soak the peas, tick, rinse, tick, add lots of water, tick, watch carefully and catch them in time as they are about to boil over, tick. All seemed to be going swimmingly, lovely smell, no mess on the cooker, plenty of liquid. And then I realised... there were no actual peas in the pea mush. I boiled them more rapidly, reduced the liquid, thinking that at any time they would suddenly form a delicious mush. It never happened. Well, it did technically but not until the what could only be now described as soup, had spent the night in the fridge.
Kevin searched the British recipe sites to find out what had gone wrong. Nigella, I thought was particularly unhelpful. She advocated mushing up ordinary peas with garlic and crème fraîche, which does indeed sound yummy. HOW....ever, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to mushy peas.
The actual mushy pea how-tos seemed to indicate that I had used too much water, but I know how much water used to go into that big old saucepan at home. Same difference as it were, but I guess I used not enough peas. Maybe even the quick soak have been pre-treated in some way that isn't helpful for long cooking, but whatever. We live and learn.
The way I like to see this culinary debacle is that since I'm not a Northerner, I'm not born with the way of the mushy pea. I will prevail however. The mushy pea will not get the better of me.
Kevin didn't miss a beat in rescuing the meal. He had cooked the main course and pudding in any case.
Tis Easter Monday, and apart from the schools and I believe some government establishments, everyone's back at work today. Shocking. Easter Monday is like Boxing Day, everyone needs it. Oh well, just one more thing to add to my mental list to bother Stephen Harper about.
Nothing new under the sun
2 years ago
3 comments:
Did you add bicarb? Over here the peas come with a steeping tablet, but bicarb would work. I think that that may be the difference between mushy peas and, er, peas. That and a Brummie accent...
yep, there were tablets with it, in fact the peas were imported from Slough. A sticker had had to be put over the English instructions so that they were in both French and English. I think the diff between mushy peas and garden peas is the variety, mushies are always marrowfat peas. They have a special....mushy quality :)
Whatever way you cook them, no matter what you add they are still green, snotty nastiness that should remain north of Watford at all costs! North of Cosham would be good, North of Fratton Bridge, Ideal!
Simmi
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