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Hard-Pea Soup
Soak 2 pounds of split peas overnight in water, to which a little soda has been added. All the peas that float should be thrown away. Strain out the peas and place them in 2 quarts of stock. Add a head of celery, a cut-down carrot, a large onion or 2 small ones, and season with a pinch of curry powder or a little cayenne pepper. Boil with a lid on the pot until all is soft. Skim off the scum occasionally, and then strain carefully into a heated tureen, beating the pulp through the strainer with a spoon. Serve as hot as possible, placing a cupful of crumbled bread crumbs into the tureen before the soup is dished.
A plain Victorian dried-pea pottage, thickened by nothing but the peas themselves and pushed through a sieve rather than blended. The proportions are dense; expect a puree rather than a broth.
- The soda soakA pinch of baking soda in the soaking water softens the skins in hard water and speeds breakdown. Use no more than a scant quarter-teaspoon for 2 lb of peas, and rinse them well afterward, since soda in quantity gives a soapy taste and turns the peas to mush with a grey cast. Modern split peas soften fine without it.
- FloatersPeas that bob to the top are usually hollow, insect-damaged or badly dried. Discarding them is still sound practice, along with any stones or shrivelled fragments.
- LiquidTwo quarts of stock to 2 lb of peas gives a very stiff puree that will catch on the bottom. Have another quart of stock or water at hand and add it as the peas swell; thin at the end to the consistency you want.
- "A cut-down carrot"Simply a carrot cut into pieces. Everything here is aromatic that gets strained out, so rough chunks are correct rather than neat dice.
- Cooking timeSplit peas at a bare simmer, lid on, need roughly an hour to two hours to collapse completely, depending on the age of the peas and the soak. Stir the bottom often; pea puree scorches readily and one scorched patch flavours the whole pot.
- StrainingThe instruction to beat the pulp through the strainer with a spoon is the point of the dish — the skins stay behind and the texture turns velvety. A food mill with a medium plate does the same work in a fraction of the time; a blender will not remove the skins.
- SeasoningA pinch of curry powder here is background warmth, not a curry flavour. Salt at the end: if the stock is commercial or reduced, the finished puree concentrates it considerably.
- The bread crumbsCoarse crumbs or small fried croutons hold up better than fine dry crumbs, which dissolve into paste. Put them in the tureen and pour over, as written, so they are not sodden before serving.
- YieldAs written, with 2 lb of peas and 2 quarts of stock, this makes roughly 2 quarts of very thick puree; loosened with the extra liquid suggested above, about 3 quarts, enough for eight to ten as a first course.
"Hard peas" refers to mature field peas dried hard, as opposed to green peas eaten fresh -- the same sort of peas that were split and skinned for the split-pea trade. Dried pulses were among the cheapest reliable proteins in a British or American winter larder, and pea soup thick enough to stand a spoon in was a staple of both institutional kitchens and family dinners; the London fogs of the nineteenth century were nicknamed pea-soupers, and a thick version is still called a London Particular. Curry powder and cayenne were both well established in English kitchens across the nineteenth century, and the crumbs in the tureen are plain household economy: yesterday's bread rescued in tonight's soup.