Purée de Petits Pois Recipe (Mashed Peas)

Mashed potatoes are my guilty pleasure. For this version, green peas complement the flavor of this version and gives a beautiful color and wonderful texture to the purée.

My baby girl is already over 5 months old and I've started introducing solid food to her in the past 2 weeks. I've given her a diversity of vegetables already. Today, I tried feeding her legumes and made some baby food for her using peas. They're perfect because they're starchy and have a wonderful texture. I passed them through a large mesh sieve to remove the "skin" from the peas, which gave me the idea of making something similar for the family.

Ingredients

Yields: 6 servings

5 Yukon Gold potatoes
1-½ cups canned green peas
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced and softened to room temperature
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, cut into thirds
1 cup milk
¾ cup heavy cream, as needed
1-½ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon wasabi paste, to taste
½ teaspoon white pepper, freshly ground
2 tablespoons Roquefort blue cheese (optional)
1 tablespoon curly parsley, optional

Directions

For the peas: Reserve 2 tablespoons. Warm the rest, drain and coarsely mash them.

Frying garlic: In a small pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the garlic and cook until golden. Set aside.

Cooking the potatoes: Peel the potatoes and dice them into 2-½-inch chunks. Place the potatoes in a small pot. Cover with water. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-high. Cook for about or about 15 minutes. The potatoes should be fork-tender but still firm. Remove from the pot. Transfer to a platter and let cool a little.

Warming the milk and cream: Place the milk and cream in a saucepan. Bring to a near boil, then turn off the heat.

Assembly time:

Once the potatoes are dried and cool enough to handle, place them back in the pot and stir them to remove as much water as possible. Using a food mill, mash the potatoes and fried garlic cloves. Add butter, wasabi paste and the mashed green peas. Using a wooden spoon, slowly add the warm milk and cream, stirring to the desired thickness. You might add more heavy cream (or milk) if you like it smoother. Add 1 teaspoon of parsley.

To make the mashed potatoes smooth and fluffier, strain the mixture through a coarse-meshed sieve using a spatula. Season with salt and white pepper. Serve warm. Garnish with more parsley and garnish with the reserved green peas.

Bon appétit!