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PEAS SOUP (another way) (When no stock is at hand)
When no stock is at hand procure two penny-worth of fresh bones the day before the soup is wanted. Wash them well, trim them, and put them into a saucepan with two quarts of cold water, two carrots, three onions, one turnip, four or five sticks of celery, eight peppercorns, half a tea-spoonful of dried mint, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a table-spoonful of moist sugar. Bring the liquid to a boil, skim carefully, then draw it to the side of the fire, and let it simmer gently for four or five hours. Soak a pint of split peas overnight. The next day wash and boil them gently in a quart of water until they are reduced to a pulp. Be careful to stir frequently, or the peas may burn on the bottom. Strain the stock and mix it with the peas. Boil all together until the peas are well mixed with the soup, and add two ounces of butter which has been smoothly mixed with three dessert-spoonfuls of flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of unmixed mustard, and a pinch of cayenne. Boil for half an hour, then rub the soup through a hair sieve, boil again, and serve immediately. Send toasted sippets and powdered dried mint to table on separate dishes. Time, from an hour and a half to three hours to boil the peas; half an hour to boil the soup. If the water used in making peas soup has been previously used in cooking animal or vegetable food, the soup will thereby be greatly improved. Probable cost, 1s. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A frugal split-pea soup built on a quick bone broth rather than kept stock. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the measures and one piece of equipment need translating.
- Two penny-worth of bonesBones were cheap offcuts sold by the coin rather than by weight, so no exact conversion is possible; 1-1.5 lb of beef or veal bones will do. Roasting them first gives more flavour than the recipe's plain simmer, though it changes the pale character of the finished soup.
- Small spoon measuresA salt-spoonful is about 1/4 teaspoon. A dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons, so the three called for with the butter come to 2 tablespoons of flour against 2 oz (4 tablespoons) butter -- a slack roux, thickening rather than stiffening the soup.
- Moist sugar and unmixed mustardMoist sugar is unrefined light brown sugar; a tablespoon in two quarts of stock is a seasoning, not a sweetener. "Unmixed" mustard means dry mustard powder, as opposed to the made-up paste sold ready-mixed.
- The peas are the hingeSplit peas scorch the instant the pulp thickens and catch on the pan base, and burnt pea is impossible to disguise. Cook them in a heavy pan over low heat, stir down to the bottom often, and add water if the mass stiffens before it collapses.
- Timing the peasThe stated hour and a half to three hours reflects peas of unknown age. Modern split peas, soaked overnight, are usually pulp in 45-60 minutes; judge by texture, not the clock.
- The hair sieveA fine horsehair sieve was pushed through with a wooden spoon. A food mill or a stick blender followed by a pass through a fine mesh strainer gives the same smooth result in a fraction of the time.
- Fire management"Draw it to the side of the fire" means the barest simmer, with the surface just trembling. A hard boil on the bone stock will emulsify fat into the liquid and cloud it.
- SippetsSmall triangles or cubes of toasted bread, sent to table separately so they stay crisp. Dried mint offered alongside is a genuinely good touch with peas and worth keeping.
- Reused cooking waterThe suggestion to use water left from cooking meat or vegetables is sound economy for water used the same day. Cooled, unrefrigerated pot liquor kept overnight is not something to carry over.
- YieldSix to eight as a first course, or four as a main with bread. It thickens considerably on standing and will need loosening when reheated.
Split pea soup was one of the fixed points of the nineteenth-century English kitchen: dried peas kept indefinitely, cost almost nothing, and turned scraps of bone into a filling dish, which is why Cassell's gives several versions and troubles to price this one at a shilling for eight. The pairing with dried mint is older than the book and specifically English -- mint had long been the herb served with peas, fresh or dried -- and the sippets are generally traced to the medieval practice of eating soup poured over bread. The instruction to begin with "two penny-worth of fresh bones" assumes a butcher who would sell them by the coin rather than the pound, a transaction that has largely disappeared. London's yellow winter fogs were nicknamed pea-soupers after pea soup in general, for its colour and thickness.