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Nut and Tomato Soup
1 pint of strained tomatoes; 1 pint water; 1 pint milk; 2 tablespoonfuls of peanut butter.
Put the nut butter in a dish and add a little water; rub smooth with a spoon, and add a little water; rub smooth with a spoon, and add a little more water until it is of the consistency of thick cream. Put the tomatoes, water, and prepared butter on the fire and let boil ten minutes. When ready to take off add the milk, and season with salt and cayenne.
Instead of the nut butter 1 pint roasted and shelled peanuts may be used, or one-half chestnuts or pecans. Remove the brown husks from the peanuts, pound to a paste in a mortar with a little hot water, add a little cream or milk, blending thoroughly; then proceed the same as with the nut butter.
A vegetarian cream soup of the sanitarium school, thickened by nut butter rather than a roux. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes; the only real difficulty is keeping the milk from curdling against the acid tomato.
- Add the milk off the heatThis is the hinge. Tomato acid will curdle milk that is boiled with it. Warm the milk separately, take the tomato base off the fire, and stir the milk in at the end as written — do not return it to a boil.
- Strained tomatoesAt the time this meant fresh or canned tomatoes cooked and pushed through a sieve to remove skin and seeds. Passata is the closest equivalent; canned tomato puree is thicker and would want loosening. A pint is 2 cups.
- Peanut butter of the periodThen it was essentially ground roasted peanuts, sometimes salted, without the added sugar, hydrogenated oil or emulsifiers of later commercial brands. Use natural unsweetened peanut butter or the soup may read as sweet.
- Slaking the nut butterWork the water in a spoonful at a time from the start. Dumping it all in at once leaves lumps of butter that never disperse; a blender or immersion blender does the same job in seconds.
- Grinding your own nutsA pint of shelled roasted peanuts is roughly 10-12 oz and far more than 2 tablespoons of butter's worth — expect a much heavier soup. A food processor replaces the mortar; work in a little hot water until it is a smooth paste.
- The chestnut and pecan variation"One-half chestnuts or pecans" is ambiguous in the original: it most likely means half the pint measure of nuts, chestnuts and pecans being richer and heavier than peanuts. Chestnuts must be cooked and peeled before pounding.
- SeasoningCayenne here is a pinch, not a teaspoon — enough to lift the peanut without registering as heat. Salt at the very end, after the milk, since nut butters vary in salt content.
- YieldRoughly three pints, serving four as a first course. Reheat gently and never to a boil; thin with a little milk if needed.