Pois a la Francaise

I thought peas with bacon, lettuce and a butter sauce was as classic French as could be.

Ive cooked it many times without even thinking about where I became aware of it.

Maybe its such a a classic that it was a 1980s standard, part of the whole Francophile movement. I don’t remember it as a dish I ate as as part of the family culinary repertoire (which was vast and eclectic).

I don’t remember eating it on my adolescent travels and beyond.

I suspect I saw it on TV or in a sunday supplement. Floyd did a couple of versions so that may be the link.

Looking through my books there are some recipes but most are not classic. Bocuse. No. Raymond Blanc – a dish but its a bit fancied up. Anne Willan – adds a lot of cream. Patricia Wells – doesn’t even stoop beyond pea soup.

Elizabeth David – my usual go to – probably has the best recipe and write up “the difference… is that we cook each pea…separately …often a separate bullet, the french cook them together with a sauce although that often consist only of butter”

At some time I have cooked this from a unremembered recipe and now it makes up a regular dish albeit in different guises.

Today its a bright summer evening and I have some heavy pods hanging off some struggling pea plants. They have put all there energy into those fat pos and are in their dying days.

The pods snap open and reveal green peas of a colour not on the standard scale. They almost glow green. They are sweet. Slightly starchy. Not overly sweet like their wonderful frozen cousins.

Easy. Melt butter. Add very finely chopped white onion. Soften briefly. Add little gem lettuce. Be generous. Then peas and chicken stock.

“What no lardons?” You rightly contend. My preference is to have the lardon in a separate pan. Sweating their curing into some fresh oil (butter).

Tip the peas, lettuce onion stock into the frying lardons.

It reduces the chicken stock and deglazes the lardons. Flavour ++

Serve with fresh baguette and a glass of white wine. Most compliment in their own ways.

(Classically tiny onions are used. The sort that are pickled for cocktail onions. Recipes also add sugar. Personally I think adding cocktail onions would be a bad move. They will overwhelm the peas. I like the freshness without the added acid – if you want some a couple of drops of cider vinegar maybe you can get a fresh edge. Up to you0