petit pois À la française

These braised peas and lettuce are usually served as an accompaniment with meat dishes, but are really rather more versatile than that. You could, for example, serve them with poached eggs on toast – really tasty, and cheap.

Prep: 20 minutes

Cooking: 20 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients

·         2–3 finely sliced shallots

·         3 tbsps unsalted butter

·         small amount of oil

·         1 Little Gem lettuce, shredded

·         10 oz frozen petits pois

·         120ml hot chicken stock

Method

1.       Slice the shallots finely, and cook them in the butter and oil until soft (the oil is there to stop the butter from burning).

2.      Shred the lettuce and stir into the shallots, and once it's wilted add the frozen peas and stock.

3.      Cook at a fast simmer, uncovered, until everything is tender.

Variant

For added zing and an extra colour, use 150gm of lardons, or chopped smoked bacon, cooking these at the same time as the shallots.