Softly braised vegetables combine with crisp-skinned chicken thighs in this reliable, versatile dish
T
he weather lately has been as temperamental as peas in pods. But peas are even harder to read than the sky: some pods contain sweet things no bigger than peppercorns, which explode when you bite them; the contents of others, however, are closer to small ball bearings, their size very likely a sign that all the natural sucrose has been metabolised and transformed to pea starch. The best thing for the tiny ones is to snack on them alongside a bit of cheese, whereas the path for big ones is the same as for dried peas, so pea and ham soup or a long-simmered puree.
Prepared for all the above, I first checked that there were frozen peas in the freezer. It was a packet I used to take for granted until, aged 14 and having finished all the biscuits, crisps, cereal and milk, I decided that peas were a decent late-night desperation snack. Fortunately, there was a packet, because I needed a good portion of it to make up for the pea shortfall caused by the huge and tiny ones found in one kilo of pods.
This week’s recipe is a mix of three recipes. The first is Arabella Boxer’s poussins aux pois in First Slice Your Cookbook, which was published in 1964 and designed by her then husband, Mark Boxer, who had the innovative and massively useful idea of slicing the cookbook in three and ring binding each part, so you can flip through the three sections – soup and hors d’oeuvres, mains and puddings – separately, and have them all open at once. The book also includes drawings by Alan Cracknell and wine suggestions by Hugh Johnson. In short: run to AbeBooks and get a copy. The second and third are Ada Boni’s pollo in padella (chicken in a pan) and her braised peas and spring onion from Il Talismano della Felicità (The Talisman of Happiness), which is a fraction of the fun of First Slice Your Cookbook, but also brilliant. The combination of pan-fried chicken with golden, crisp skin and softly braised spring vegetables is delightful.
