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Winter Peas Soup (Slice four carrots four onions)
259. Slice four carrots, four onions, three turnips, some outside stalks of celery, and brown them in a buttered stewpan. Stew them for four or five hours with some parsley and herbs in four or five pints of good stock or broth, with a quart or more of peas, soaked over night. Add a spoonful of walnut and mushroom ketchup, and a little brown sugar, and slice a little fresh celery into the tureen before pouring in the soup, and serve with fried toast and powdered mint. If the pea-powder is used the soup can be made more quickly. Another Receipt. - Save the water of boiled pork or beef; and if too salt, put as much fresh water to it, or use fresh water entirely with roast beef bones, a ham or gammon bone, and an anchovy or two. Simmer these with some good whole or split peas; these should always be put in water to soak the night before; the smaller the quantity of water at first, the better. Simmer till the peas will pulp through a colander; then pulp them, and boil the pulp in the liquor that boiled the peas, with two carrots, a turnip, a leek, a little parsley, and a stick of celery cut into bits, or use the tincture of celery or celery seed; stew till all are quite tender, then season with pepper and salt; strain, and serve with bread toasted, and cut in dice, or fried in the same shape. Dried mint is to be finely powdered and served with it. This soup is much improved by adding a little cream; if not thick enough, add a little flour and butter. 260. PEA-SOUP (WITHOUT MEAT). - Boil one pint of split peas four or five hours, till quite tender, in two quarts of water. Add two large carrots and two turnips, a stick of celery, and some potatoes cut all in pieces, and boiled till they will pulp through a sieve. Cut one large onion in slices, and fry it in flour and butter, with pepper and salt enough for the whole soup. Add this to the above with a little soy and ketchup, and it will scarcely be distinguished from the soup made with meat. 261. PEA-SOUP FOR LENT. - Put three pints of boiling peas into five quarts of soft cold water, three anchovies, three red herrings, two large onions, two or three cloves, a carrot and parsnip sliced in, a few Jerusalem artichokes, and a bunch of sweet herbs, boil all together till the soup is thick, strain it, and add a sliced stick of celery, one ounce or butter, a little brown sugar and ketchup, or Indian soy. Serve with fried squares of bread, and dried mint if liked.
Three related pea soups sit side by side here: a rich vegetable-and-stock version, a meatless one, and a Lenten one built on salt fish. All three assume dried peas and a cook with an open fire and no hurry.
- The peas"A quart or more of peas" means dried peas measured by volume, something like 1 3/4 to 2 lb by an imperial quart, and they must be soaked overnight as the text says. "Boiling peas" in the Lenten recipe appears to be the ordinary dried soup pea, whole or split; modern split peas behave the same and need no skinning.
- Cooking timeFour or five hours is far longer than needed today; older, drier peas, hard water and an open fire may all have played a part. Soaked split peas collapse in 45 to 90 minutes, whole peas in about two hours. Judge by whether they pulp, not by the clock, and stop there or the vegetables turn to nothing.
- Pea-powderThe shortcut mentioned in the first receipt appears to be pea flour or pea meal, sold ready-milled. Dried pea flour is the modern equivalent; use it to thicken rather than as the whole body of the soup.
- Walnut and mushroom ketchupNeither is tomato ketchup. Both were thin, dark, salty savoury liquids; mushroom ketchup is still sold, and a splash of a good soy or Worcestershire stands in for the walnut. "Indian soy" in recipe 261 is soy sauce.
- Red herringsThese are whole herrings hard-cured in salt and heavy smoke, not the kippers you can buy now. Three of them made the Lenten soup intensely salty and fishy; two or three anchovy fillets alone will carry the idea, and you should salt only at the end.
- Salt from the pork liquorThe second receipt is right to warn you. Water from boiled salt pork or a gammon bone can be aggressively salty, so taste before adding any salt at all, and dilute as the text suggests rather than seasoning around it.
- Tincture of celeryA flavouring extract of the kind the book takes for granted, now uncommon on shop shelves. Celery seed is the practical substitute, and a small pinch is enough; it is far stronger than the stalk.
- Straining and the garnishThe second receipt of 259 says to strain, and 260 pulps its vegetables through a sieve, though the first receipt of 259 does neither and has fresh celery sliced raw into the tureen for bite. Powdered dried mint scattered at table is the period signature and worth keeping; the bread is to be diced and toasted or fried, though the fat is left unstated.
- YieldThese are large quantities. Recipe 259, on four or five pints of stock plus a quart of peas and the vegetables, will feed a table of eight or so; 260, on two quarts of water, rather fewer; 261, at five quarts, was clearly built for a large household and halves easily.