The saddest part about some retro recipes is how poorly they do at “appreciating” some styles of cuisine. Want to make your peas taste like they’re from India? Just add curry powder.
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 to 3/4 teaspoon curry powder, according to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup salted peanuts, chopped
1 can (17-oz.) DEL MONTE Early Garden PeasMelt butter or margarine. Mix in curry powder, add peanuts; sauté 2 min. Add well-drained DEL MONTE Peas and mix carefully with a fork till peas are hot. (Be sure to use a light hand — remember all these peas are tender!) Serves 4.
I’m pretty happy to live in a time period where curry powder isn’t particularly “exotic” anymore, to be honest. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t really Indian.
Anyway! Cooking!
Five minutes before this picture was taken, the jar of peanuts was full. Then the toddler found it.
If that kid had his way, this would be Peanuts Peanutienne: peanuts sauteed in peanuts with peanuts and peanut powder on top.
Luckily, he is incapable of cooking, so we followed the recipe as written.
This was much tastier than expected, although Del Monte’s vintage ads have a pretty decent track record on this blog. The curry was pleasant, and the peanuts provided a great crunchy texture. We’d certainly make this again since it’s a quick way to dress up canned peas — and would probably work well with frozen, too.
And even the picky toddler ate it.
Retro Recipe Attempts 
I’ll have to take your expert word on it! That looks gnarley.
By: naomusings on September 22, 2014
at 2:16 pm
Hah! Every sous chef should be less than two feet tall, and obsessed with legumes. I do like peanuts chopped in Thai food, so maybe curried peas with peanuts would work… I’d be interested in trying it with frozen, though – tinned peas give me the shivers, since the only kind I’ve eaten are tinned mallow peas in Scotland, and may I say ugh.
By: tee+d on September 22, 2014
at 4:41 pm
Interesting. Kind of like “baby steps” cuisine for mid-century American cooks. Seriously, my grandmother was still rinsing off two tablespoons (scant) of grated white onion to season a giant pot of spaghetti as late as the late 70’s.
By: Patrick M. on October 6, 2014
at 1:51 am