Green Peas to serve with meat

A medieval side dish of steamed green peas with herbs that works with meat. The original recipe is from the 1400’s.

The source

“Grene Pesen. Take yonge grene pesen, and sethe hom with gode broth of beef, and take parsel, sage, saveray, and ysope, and a lytle brede, and bray all this in a morter, and sume of the pesen therpyth, and tempur hit wuth the broth, and do hit in a pot to the other pesen, and let hit boyle togedur, and serve hit forth. ”
From Pleyn Delit, no 20

My adaptation

I used fewer herbs than the original recipe calls for, just because it is in the middle of the winter and I wasn’t able to get hold of hyssop or savory or mint at this time of year. Instead I used thyme – I am sure the real version is more complex, but my version did taste good. As it was in the middle of the winter, I shouldn’t be serving green peas at all – but well.

Sadly I didn’t remember to take a picture, but I will next time I make the dish.

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Green Peas to serve with meat

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Historical cooking, Medieval

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 700 grams frozen peas
• 200 milliliters beef stock
• A bunch of flat-leaf parsley
• 3 pinces of fresh mint
• 6 leaves of sage
• a bit of fresh hyssop (or 0,5 tsp dried)
• a bit of fresh savory (or 0,5 tsp dried)
• 1,5 slices plain white bread for fresh bread crumbs

Instructions

1. Defrost the peas, if you are using frozen ones, like I did.
2. Cook the peas in a bit of stock.
3. Bend the bread to make breadcrumbs - remember to remove the crust.
4. Take 100 ml of peas and blend them with the stock and herbs.
5. Heat the pea source and let it thicken a bit.
6. Mix it with with the cooked peas and heat them if needed.

Recipe Notes

Source: Pleyn Delit 1400's