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Green Pea Puree
Boil until tender a quart of shelled peas in salted hot water with a young onion, a few sprigs of parsley, and 6 mint leaves. Rub through a colander and return to the fire. Add half a cupful of good stock, season with salt and pepper and a little sugar. Let it boil two minutes, then thicken with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Cook one minute longer, and pour upon croutons of fried bread dice in the tureen.
A quick, thin puree soup that depends entirely on the peas being young and freshly cooked. It comes together in under half an hour and does not improve with standing.
- Quantity of peasA quart of shelled peas is about 4 cups, roughly 1 lb 5 oz (600 g) — which will take somewhere between 3 and 4 lb of peas in the pod, depending on how well filled they are. Frozen petits pois are an honest substitute and need only a few minutes' boiling.
- Colander means sieveRubbing through a colander as written would let the skins through. Use a food mill, or a fine sieve and the back of a ladle. A blender gives a smoother result but leaves the hulls in unless you sieve afterwards.
- The mint is structuralSix mint leaves and the parsley go in with the peas, and are rubbed through the colander along with them, so their flavour stays in the finished soup. Do not fish them out before pureeing. Whether the cooking water is drained or kept the recipe does not say.
- ConsistencyHalf a cup of stock to a quart of peas gives a thick puree, closer to a spoonable soup than a broth. Thin with more stock or the pea cooking water to the texture you want, before the butter and flour go in.
- ThickeningA tablespoon of butter rolled in flour is beurre manié — soft butter kneaded with roughly an equal volume of flour. Whisk it in off the boil in small pieces, then return to heat for the stated minute so the flour loses its raw taste.
- SugarA little sugar with peas is common in cookery of this period. With frozen or garden-fresh peas it is usually unnecessary; taste first.
- CroutonsFried bread dice go into the tureen, not the pot, and should be added at the moment of serving or they collapse. Cut them small, about 1 cm, and fry in butter or clarified butter.
- YieldServes three to four as a first course.