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soft water, and gently simmered till they are tender, and added to the soup half an hour before dinner.
Another (A Genuine Scotch Receipt). -Put on as much water in a good-sized goblet as will make two days' soup to serve six or eight of a family; three hours before dinner-hour add two pounds of hough (Anglicè, leg of beef), half a dish of old peas, one dozen of middlingsized carrots cut down in small pieces, and four onions cut down; ; let this boil an hour and a half, then add the other half-dish of peas, and two pounds of mutton chops. When it has all boiled for three hours, take out the hough and serve it up with the mutton chops in it. It is considered best the second day; it should be as thick as porridge nearly. A few beans and turnips can be added, but the turnips are apt to sour it; yet, when peas are scarce and young, it is necessary to put turnips to make it thick enough.
A two-day Scotch pea and meat broth, given without salt, pepper or exact pulse measures in the fashion of the period. The instructions are workable if you translate the vessel and the cuts.
- GobletIn Scots usage a goblet is a lidded cast-iron cooking pot, not a drinking glass. Use a stockpot; the recipe is sized to make two days' soup for six to eight of a family, so it needs to be a roomy one.
- HoughHough is the shin or leg of beef, the same cut sold today as shin, gravy beef or bone-in beef shank. It is collagen-heavy and wants the full three hours; a leaner cut will shred and give a thin broth.
- "Half a dish of old peas"This is a household measure with no fixed modern equivalent. "Old peas" means dried peas rather than fresh green ones, and the total quantity is the whole "dish" split in two additions; a reasonable working figure is about 1 lb dried split peas in all, half at the start and half later, adjusted to the thickness described at the end.
- Why the peas go in twiceThe first half has an hour and a half longer to break down and thicken the liquid; the second, added after ninety minutes, is likely to keep more texture.
- Mutton chops lateThe chops join only for the last ninety minutes. Mutton or lamb shoulder chops hold up; loin chops of modern lamb will be dry and stringy over that time, so choose the fattier cut.
- TurnipsThe warning that turnips 'sour it' would matter most for a soup kept overnight in a cool larder. If you are refrigerating the pot, a small amount of swede or turnip should be less of a risk; add it in the last hour so it does not disintegrate.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified, which is not unusual in receipts of this kind. Salt lightly during cooking and correct at the end, after the peas have thickened the liquid.
- Keeping it two daysPulse broths do commonly improve on the second day, but cool it quickly and refrigerate rather than leaving it standing in the pot. Thin with a little water when reheating; it sets very stiff.
Peas and a cheap collagen-rich cut of beef, stretched over two days and thickened to "nearly as thick as porridge," describe an everyday broth pot rather than a dish of the dinner-table repertoire. Cookery books of the period sometimes printed such items under the heading of a "genuine" regional receipt, left in household measures - a goblet, a dish of peas - rather than converted to the pound-and-ounce style of the professional kitchen. Dried peas were a staple winter pulse in Scotland, and the note about using turnips when "peas are scarce and young" may point to the seasonal gap before the new crop was fit for drying. The recipe directs that the hough be taken out and served up with the mutton chops in it.