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Tomato and Green Pea Puree
1/2 can tomatoes (or same amount of fresh tomatoes cut in pieces); 1 pint shelled green peas; 1 small onion; 1 pint stock; 1 pint water; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon flour; 1 teaspoon salt; a dash each of paprika and white pepper.
Canned peas may be used, in which case pour off the water in which they are canned. Slice the onion and put in a saucepan with the tomatoes and peas. Add the sugar and salt.
Pour over it the boiling water and cook slowly until soft. Rub through a coarse strainer; put the pulp back in the saucepan, add the stock. Rub the flour smooth with a little cold stock; then add some of the hot liquor, stirring it until perfectly smooth; add it to the soup, boil until the flour is cooked, add pepper, and serve with croutons or crisp saltines. No. 2--Without Stock Cook the tomatoes, peas, and onion as in the preceding; omit the stock and add one pint milk in its place, and 1 tablespoon butter rubbed to a paste with the flour. 1/2 pint rich cream, whipped light and added when taken from the fire, is an improvement.
A straightforward two-vegetable puree from the era before blenders, when "puree" meant something pressed through a sieve. Both versions come together in well under an hour.
- Half a can of tomatoesCan sizes varied in this period, from roughly a pint to about a quart, so half a can means somewhere between 1 and 2 cups. Canned diced or crushed tomatoes, juice included, are the right substitute.
- A pint of shelled peasAbout 10 oz, or roughly 2 cups. Frozen peas work directly and need no draining; the instruction to pour off the canning water applies only to canned peas, whose liquid is salty and dull.
- StockThe recipe does not say what kind; any decent unsalted meat stock does the job. Because the recipe already carries a teaspoon of salt, taste before adding more.
- Straining is the whole pointA coarse strainer and a wooden spoon or ladle give the slightly textured body the recipe intends. A blender will emulsify the pea skins into the soup and produce something thicker and greener; if you use one, pass it through a sieve afterward to catch the skins.
- Cook the flour out"Boil until the flour is cooked" means three to five minutes of gentle simmering after the slurry goes in, long enough to lose the raw starch taste. Tempering the slurry with hot liquid first, as directed, is what keeps it from lumping.
- Version 2 and the milkOnce the milk is in, keep the pot below a simmer. Tomato acid plus dairy plus a hard boil will curdle it; the butter-flour paste helps, but heat control matters more.
- The whipped creamHalf a pint whipped and folded in off the heat both lightens and enriches the soup. Fold it in as late as possible if the soup is to sit, since whipped cream deflates in hot liquid.
- YieldRoughly a quart and a half of finished soup with the stock, serving four to six as a first course. Croutons or saltines are not decorative here -- the soup is thin by modern standards and wants something crisp.