Faggots and Peas

[Wohoki]

Try scrubbing with a paste made from salt and lemon juice or vinegar and a bit of elbow grease. It's what I use to clean my few aluminium pans.

[Rik vonTrense]

Right will do.....

I usually give them a boil out with rhubarb leaves in the summer.

The pressure cookers are the only aluminium pots I have the rest being stainless except the Le Creuset stuff that I use on the Induction hob
that only takes magnetic pots and the stainless is all copper bottomed.


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[Josh]

If you want a go at Pease pudding I think that it is traditional to make it with yellow split peas.

Here is a recipe. I have not tried it yet, but it might be worth a go.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=214

I'd say peas pudding is yellow split peas too.

I had a really nice chargrilled gammon with pease pudding and black pudding at my local pub a while back. They'd stuck some fresh coriander in the pease pudding and it worked a treat.

[Lee]

Reading with interest, as I work for the UK's premier mushy pea producer! The bicarb tablet is to allow the peas skins to stretch so the peas don't burst when soaking. With mushy peas, they are allowed to burst, and thats about it really.
Interestingly, it's actually blue food colouring that goes into them, not green, so there's a fascinating fact
The tablet shouldn't react with aluminium pans, as it's alkaline, and its generally acids that react with aluminium (hence the lemon juice and rhubard getting your pans clean), should say though, not generally considered healthy to do this, as shiney aluminium reacts with the food leading to Altzeimers potential (amongst other things), nice dull pans are perfectly safe due to oxidised layer on the surface.

On the faggot front though, amde some last week from the recipe here, and they taste bloody fantastic, and yes, I had them with mushy peas. Really pleased

[Oddley]

Hi Lee, I have two questions for you.

1: So when is the best time to add bicarb to the dried marrowfat peas. When soaking or when cooking them.

2: How does the bicarb react with the pea skin cells to allow them to stretch.

My wife's father always added bicarb to greens, I have always wondered why. As he is now deceased I have no chance of asking him.

[Rik vonTrense]

Oddley.....

My Mother was a cook in service in her younger days and she always put bicarb in greens...."enough to cover a sixpence" she said it keeps them nice a green when they are cooked.


Yet one of my Mothers in law poo pooed the idea saying ....yer don't want that muck in good greens.....she was a herbalist and didn't believe in innoculations of any sort.


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[Wohoki]

Quite right about the shiny aliminium thing: whether there is an Alzheimers link or not, it's wise to avoid consuming metal salts if you can. However, the oxide laver builds up very quickly, so just filling the pan with water and bringing it to a boil for five minutes is enough. And avoid cooking acidic foods as well.

[Oddley]

Rik

That's interesting info. I had never heard of anyone else doing it before.

I was thinking along the lines, that if the bicarb allowed the skin of veg to stretch it would allow greens or cabbage to absorb more water, thereby making a more succulent veg. For a bit of fun, I think I will do a bit of experimentation.

[Wohoki]

And for a bit of fun, I might give the little sods another go. I guess I didn't soak them long enough.

If anyones interested, if you soak them, drain them, keep them in a jar with a piece of cloth over the mouth and give them a rinse twice a day for a week they sprout and are superb in fried rice. They taste like fresh garden peas, and are reputed to be very healthy.

[royt]

I was under the impression rightly or wrongly by adding S.Bicarb to greens gives them a nice green colour but destroys the vitamin content.

[jenny_haddow]

Bicarb does keep your greens green, but will break down the delicate covering of the leaves, so if you like you veg to crunch then leave it out. I find it leaves an after taste as well. If you want to keep your greens green and al dente steam them.

I spoke to my dad regarding Rik's question about pre war steamed faggots from German vendors. Well he went back into nostalgia heaven and recalls being sent down Lambeth Walk to the pie and eel shop by his gran to buy faggots and peas for dinner. This would be late twenties, early thirties. He took a china jug with him for the gravy and the whole lot was put in the jug. He says the shop owners were English, but a lot of the pork butchers in London were German at that time, perhaps they sold faggot too. He cant recall how they were cooked, but said they were b-wonderful to eat! Apparently the ritual was his gran singing a short ditty when she served them up, it went thus:

"I'm a navigator, working on the line,
Faggots and peas for dinner every time"

That must go back some years referring to the Irish navvies who came over as construction workers on the early railways amongst other things. An interesting little bit of history, if you don't tell it it gets lost.

Cheers

Jen

[Wohoki]

I think that is because the bicarb allows you to boil the hell out of your veg (traditional British cuisine ) and still retain good colour. If you just steam or cook very rapidly the colour and vitamins are kept in good condition.

[Paul Kribs]

Yep, my mother used to do the same to greens and even cabbage.. I used to refer to it as 'plap'. Just watery mush.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Lee]

[color=indigo]Hi Lee, I have two questions for you.

1: So when is the best time to add bicarb to the dried marrowfat peas. When soaking or when cooking them.

2: How does the bicarb react with the pea skin cells to allow them to stretch.

color]

Add the bicarb when soaking, so it can act on the skins whilst the peas are swelling (when they're soaking, rather than cooking) We soak ours in 6 ton batches for the tinned peas, and the bicarbs then drained away before they're cooked in the can.

I'm not certain of the biochemistry to be honest, but thinking about it, it may be more to do with the pH than the actual Bicarb, a high pH (caused by the bicarb) will allow the stucture of lignin and cellulose (I'm guessing here now) in the skin to relax and stretch. Bicarb will be used because it's cheap and safe.

I think the colour fixing thing may be a red herring (or maybe a green one)

[Oddley]

I'm not a fan of vegetables that fall apart, but I'm also not a fan of hard veg, which seems to be the fad amongst a lot of restaurants. Where they just show the veg a pot of boiling water and you break your teeth on them.

I like my veg done all the way through but still holding it's structure and taste.

Thanks for the info Lee