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Peas, Green, Soup
In making green peas soup it is most important that the peas used should neither be old nor of inferior quality, or the flavour of the soup will be spoilt. They are best when they are almost fully grown. Shell a peck of green peas and put aside about a handful of these to be used as hereafter directed. Put the rest into a stewpan with four ounces of fresh butter, a fresh lettuce finely shredded, a small sprig of mint (if the flavour be not disliked), a moderate-sized onion, a tea-spoonful of salt, and a dozen leaves of spinach for colouring. Let the vegetables steam gently in the butter until they are quite soft, stirring occasionally to prevent their burning, then press them through a fine sieve, and mix with the pulp two quarts of clear stock or water. Return the soup to the saucepan, add a small lump of sugar and a dessert-spoonful of arrowroot, mix smoothly with water and stock to make half a pint. Stir this into the liquid, boil, and skim carefully. Whilst it is simmering, put into another saucepan of boiling water the handful of peas which were set aside with half a tea-spoonful of salt and half a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar. Let the peas boil until tender, then drain them well, and put them into the soup. Serve as hot as possible. Send a little powdered mint to table on a plate. Peas are so nourishing that stock is not needed for this soup, and the colour will be better if water be used. Sufficient for eight or nine persons. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. per quart.
A butter-sweated purée rather than a boiled soup, and the technique is what keeps the flavour fresh. A few of the measures need translating before you start.
- A peck of peasA peck is eight dry quarts — roughly 8 lb of peas in the pod, which shells out to something like 2½ to 3 lb (7–8 cups) of peas. Frozen peas work in the same quantity and are often sweeter than shop-bought fresh.
- "Almost fully grown"The instruction is deliberate: fully swollen peas have the starch and body a purée soup needs, where very young ones are watery. What the recipe warns against is old, floury peas that have gone grey and mealy in the pod.
- The hinge: steam, don't fryThe peas, lettuce and onion go into the butter over low heat with the lid on and must soften without colouring. Any browning turns the finished soup dull khaki and gives it a fried-onion note that overwhelms the peas.
- SievingA blender or food processor does the bulk of the work now, but still pass the purée through a fine sieve afterwards — pea skins survive blending and give a gritty texture.
- Liquid and thickeningTwo quarts is about 8 cups by US measure, nearer 9½ if the imperial quart is meant, as it is here. A dessert-spoonful of arrowroot is about 2 teaspoons; slake it in cold liquid, then make the total up to half a pint — 1 cup US, 10 fl oz imperial — before stirring it in. The \"small lump of sugar\" is roughly a teaspoon.
- Boil brieflyOnce the liquid is in, bring it to the boil and skim; the recipe then holds it at a simmer only while the garnish peas cook. Long simmering after the peas are puréed flattens both colour and flavour. The dozen spinach leaves cooked in with the peas are there purely for colour, as the recipe states.
- The garnish peasThe reserved handful is boiled separately in salted, sugared water so they stay whole and bright, then added at the end. A few minutes is enough for young or frozen peas; the nearly full-grown peas this recipe specifies will need longer — boil until tender, as the recipe says.
- Yield and serviceEight or nine servings, about three quarts. Serve very hot in warmed bowls; the powdered mint passed separately lets each diner decide, which is why the recipe hedges on the mint sprig as well.
Green pea soup was one of the standard English spring soups of the nineteenth century, and this version belongs to the same family as the French potage Saint-Germain, a name traditionally linked with Saint-Germain west of Paris and its early peas, though the association is more tradition than documented origin. The shredded lettuce, onion and mint are a familiar English combination for stewing peas, and the spinach is a purely cosmetic addition, spinach greening being one of the vegetable colourings in use in Victorian kitchens. The closing note that "peas are so nourishing that stock is not needed" reflects the period's confidence in the nourishing power of peas, and the costing of 1s. 6d. per quart places this as a soup for a household buying shelling peas by the peck in season.