Olivia Potts

Petits pois à la Française: a sumptuous twist on summer greens

  • From Spectator Life
Image: Samuel Pollen

Early summer crops have been delayed in many places this year, thanks to the brutal rain and cold that preceded the recent heat wave, but finally, we’re starting to see tiny tomatoes, baby figs, and the first perfectly formed pea pods bursting into life. Of course, when it comes to seasonal eating, you can argue that it’s best to keep it simple, to allow the produce to ‘speak for itself’ – but, there is little that butter, shallots, and little cubes of smokey, fatty bacon can’t make even better. And that’s where petits pois à la Française comes into its own.

The name rather gives it away: it’s a classic French dish, showcasing the best of the season’s first peas. Petits pois à la Française is a fantastic dish: bright green, salty and sweet, rich and fresh. To make it, smokey lardons are crisped in a hot pan until golden, before adding tiny tender shallots and a lot of butter. These are then folded through peas and bathed in stock, before adding the lettuce, stirring it through just until it softens, flopping onto the other ingredients.

But for all this talk of seasonal cooking, I am a pragmatist, not a purist: I’m not lucky enough to live near to an excellent green grocer, nor do we have pea tendrils triffoding their way around our garden (one day, I hope). If you don’t have access to the newest, sweetest, freshest, smallest peas, then do yourself a favour, and buy a bag of frozen petits pois. This is a dish that demands peas no bigger than pomegranate seeds, and I know that it can be hard to get your hands on those. While it’s wonderful to use freshly grown produce if you can, frozen petits pois do an excellent (whisper it: indistinguishable) job here.

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Olivia Potts
Written by
Olivia Potts
Olivia Potts is a former criminal barrister who retrained as a pastry chef. She co-hosts The Spectator’s Table Talk podcast and writes Spectator Life's The Vintage Chef column. A chef and food writer, she was winner of the Fortnum and Mason's debut food book award in 2020 for her memoir A Half Baked Idea.

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