Garden Peas à la Française by my Mémère

This is an old French classic. My granny used to give this to me when I would go and visit her on a Wednesday on my lunch from school. It would be normally served with a couple of slices of horse “roast beef”. She use to call roast beef everything that was tied with a string! It’s quick and easy to make. It’s lovely as a main veg course if you bulk it up with the extras or you can serve it as a smaller side dish option say with your Sunday roast. It’s also lovely and fresh with some fish. It’s one of my favourites and I hadn’t thought to make it in a long time but I happened to dream of my Granny who is now long gone during the week. This strange dream where she was cooking all the food in the world for me! It was a very happy dream and I suspect I’ll be cooking a lot more like she was. It was so simple and good.

Anyway, here goes:

Ingredients for 2 servings: 

Bit of butter or oil, 1 bunch of scallions (we would have used pearl onions but they’re not everywhere so springs onions are just fine instead), 1 head of baby gem lettuce, half a bag of frozen garden peas, chicken stock (or veg stock if you want to keep this a veggie option)

extras: lardons, chorizo, blue cheese, dollop of creme fraiche

Method:

Top and tail the scallions and dice them finely, heat them up slowly in the oil or butter. (If you are going with the richer option you can add your lardons or chorizo now). When they are soft add the shredded baby gem and let it wilt until it looks like this:

At this stage, add the frozen pea and cover with the stock of your choice. Let it bubble away on medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes until the stock has nearly evaporated.

If you are adding the blue cheese, chop it up and mix it in and heat it up for a further 2 minutes and add your dollop of creme fraiche and stir it in just before serving.

When cooking this recipe last night I went for the lightest version and it gave me this beauty. It tasted just like my Mémère’s version and I was really quite proud!