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American Soup
Cut into small pieces a pound of mutton (a piece from the neck will do); put it in a saucepan with half a pound of split peas that have been soaked in cold water. Add 5 pints of water, bring to a boil, and add 1 chopped onion, half a turnip, half a carrot, and a stalk of celery (all chopped) and a teaspoonful of sugar. Simmer two or three hours. Cut into small pieces 3 or 4 good-sized tomatoes, add them to the soup, and boil thirty minutes longer. Strain through a fine sieve, season with salt, pepper, a very little nutmeg or mace; boil up, and serve with croutons or triangles of crisp toast.
A thick split-pea and mutton soup that finishes with tomato — an unusual combination that gives it more acidity and colour than the usual pea soup. Nothing here is difficult; the main adjustments are the meat and the straining.
- Mutton and the substituteMutton neck is rare in most markets; lamb neck or shoulder is the closest equivalent, and lamb shoulder chops work well cut off the bone. Keep some bone in the pot if you can, as it carries most of the body of the broth.
- Soak the peas properlyThe recipe calls only for peas "that have been soaked in cold water" and gives no time. Green or yellow split peas take 4-8 hours; if you skip the soak, expect to add 30-45 minutes to the simmer and a little more water.
- Quantities in modern terms1 lb mutton, 8 oz (a little over a cup) split peas, and 5 pints of water — about 2.4 litres, or 10 cups, if American pints are meant. It reduces over the long simmer, and the peas break down, which together is how the soup gets its thickness.
- Skim before the vegetables go inBring it up slowly and lift off the grey scum before adding the onion, turnip, carrot and celery. Once the peas start breaking down they will trap it and the finished soup turns muddy.
- Guard against catchingSplit peas settle and scorch. Keep the heat at a bare simmer, use a heavy pan, and stir the bottom every twenty minutes or so; a burnt note cannot be strained out.
- The tomatoes go in last for a reasonThe tomatoes go in last -- Acid slows the softening of legumes, and here the tomatoes are added only after the peas have had two or three hours, though the recipe gives no reason for it. Three or four good-sized tomatoes is about 1 1/4 lb; drained canned tomatoes are a fair swap out of season.
- StrainingPull out the meat and press the rest through a sieve, or blend and then sieve. This is meant to be a smooth puree; expect to leave behind tomato skins and pea hulls. The mutton can be diced small and returned to the pot if you would rather not waste it.
- Mace and nutmeg"A very little" means it — a few scrapes. Nutmeg and mace were common seasonings in soups of this kind, and both dominate quickly.
- YieldRoughly 2 quarts, depending on how hard it simmers and how much is left behind in the sieve; enough for four to six. Cut the croutons or toast triangles just before serving; they soften fast in a puree this thick.
Dried peas and mutton belong to the long English tradition of pease pottage, though bacon or pork was the more usual meat in it; dried peas kept through winter, and cheap neck meat gave the pot its fat and gelatin. The tomato, added at the end and sieved out with the pea hulls, points to a nineteenth-century hand: tomatoes had become an ordinary pantry item in America by then, and compilers of the era readily worked them into inherited European formulas, which may be how a British-tasting soup came to be printed under the name "American" — the title is not explained in the text. Serving a strained puree with croutons or toast triangles was a common convention of the period.