Peas

American mode: First boil the pods, which are sweet and full of flavor, in a little water; skim them out, and add the pease, which boil until tender; add then a little butter, cream, pepper, and salt. If they are served as a garnish, do not add the juice; but, if served alone, the juice is a savory addition. Time to cook, about half an hour.

The American canned pease should be rinsed before cook-ing, as the juice is generally thick. The pease are then thrown into a little boiling water seasoned with salt, and a little sugar; butter is added when done.

English mode: Throw the pease into boiling water, with some lettuce leaves and a sprig of mint in the bottom of the stew-pan. To each quart of pease allow two table-spoonfuls of butter and a lump of loaf-sugar; cover the stew-pan close-ly, and boil until they are tender - thoroughly done; then sepa-rate the pease from the other ingrredients, sending them only to the table. This cooking of pease with mint (universally done in England) is a good way of utterly destroying the deli-cious natural flavor of the pea.

Spinach

Having washed it thoroughly, put it into just enough salt-ed boiling water to cover it. When it is tender, squeeze out all the water, and press it through a colander; then sauté it a few minutes, with a little butter, pepper, and salt. Serve with sliced, hard - boiled eggs on top; or, if it is used as a garnish for lamb, add a little lemon-juice and a spoonful of stock. Or, it is nice served as a course by itself, arranged on a platter as follows:

Put a circle of thin slices of buttered toast (one slice for each person at table) around the dish, and on each slice put a cupful of spinach, neatly smoothed in shape. Press the half of a hard-boiled egg into the top of each pile of spinach, leaving the cut part of the egg uppermost.

String-Beans

String, and cut each bean crosswise into two or three pieces. Put them, with a little pork, into boiling water, and when boiled tender drain them. Put into a stew-pan a cupful of cream, a small piece of butter rubbed in an even tea-spoonful of flour, pepper, and salt. When hot, add the beans (say one pint), and stew them a few moments before serving.

String-beans in Salad (see Salads, page 226).

Lima Beans (London Cooking-Teacher)

Put a pint of the shelled beans into boiling water slightly salted, adding two or three slices of onion. When tender, drain them. Put butter the size of an egg into a heated saucepan, and when it is hot add an even table-spoonful of minced onions, which cook well; then put in the beans; add enough water (or, better, stock) to keep them moist. Keep them at the side of the fire about a quarter of an hour, as it takes them some time to soak; just before taking them out, add a small handful of minced parsley. Do not cook them much after adding: the parsley, as that spoils its color.