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Vegetable Soup (puree)
Cut into dice four ounces of lean ham, and put it into the bottom of a stewpan. Lay upon it a turnip, a large carrot, a stick of celery, a leek or an onion, half a pint of haricot beans, and a pint of split peas. Place on the top of the vegetables a slice of fresh butter: about three ounces will be a sufficient quantity. Let the butter melt; then stir the vegetables over the fire for ten minutes. Pour upon them a pint of stock made from bones, and add four ounces of Carolina rice. Let the vegetables stew till tender. Rub them through a sieve, and moisten occasionally to soften them. Mix with the pulp an additional quart of stock. Season the puree with salt and cayenne; boil it again for a short time, skim it, and serve with fried sippets. Time, about two hours. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A thick legume purée built on ham, root vegetables, split peas and rice — closer to a modern blended soup than to a clear broth. The quantities are generous and the timing assumes dried pulses that have already been soaked.
- Soak the pulsesHalf a pint (a good cup) of dried haricot beans and a pint (about two and a half cups) of split peas are unlikely to cook tender in the two hours given unless the beans have soaked overnight. Split peas need no soaking; the haricots do.
- Liquid is short as writtenA pint of stock for that volume of dried pulses and rice will be absorbed almost immediately. Expect to add water or stock steadily through the stewing, then the final quart of stock at the purée stage. Total liquid will run to three or four pints.
- Carolina riceA long-grain white rice, historically from the South Carolina lowcountry. Any plain long-grain white rice stands in; four ounces is about half a cup, and it is there to thicken, so it should cook to collapse.
- Sieve or blender"Rub them through a sieve" means a fine-mesh sieve and a wooden spoon — laborious but it removes bean skins. A blender or stick blender gives a smoother result faster; pass it through a sieve afterwards if you want the Victorian texture.
- Stock made from bonesThe recipe specifies only stock made from bones; use an unseasoned bone stock. Commercial stock is usually already salted, so hold back on the salt until the purée has reduced and been tasted.
- SippetsSmall triangles or cubes of bread fried in butter or dripping — croutons, essentially. Fry them just before serving; they soften within minutes in a purée this thick.
- Butter and hamThree ounces of butter with four ounces of diced lean ham gives a rich base; the ham is a seasoning, not a garnish, and goes through the sieve with the vegetables.
- YieldThe stated five or six portions is plausible for the quantities given, and the soup thickens considerably on standing — thin it with stock when reheating.
This is the nineteenth-century purée in its plainest form: vegetables and pulses sweated in butter, moistened with bone stock, cooked to collapse and forced through a sieve — the same sequence produces a purée of lentils, of turnips, or of green peas. Rice was commonly used as a thickener in place of flour or a roux for soups meant to look clean and pale, and 'Carolina rice' was widely used in Britain as a name for good long-grain rice. The ham at the bottom of the pan may stand in for the meat stock a grander kitchen would have used throughout.