Green Pea Soup
Boil three pints shelled pease in three quarts of water; when quite soft, mash through a colander, adding a little water to free the pulp from the skins; return pulp to the water in which it was boiled, add a head of lettuce chopped, and half a pint young pease; boil half an hour, season with salt and pepper, and thicken with two tablespoons butter rubbed into a little flour. Serve with bits of toasted bread. The soup, when done, should be as thick as cream. omit the lettuce.
A two-stage pea soup: the bulk of the peas are cooked to a pulp and pressed for body, then a handful of whole young peas goes in near the end for texture. The proportions are generous and the method is sound; only the timings need a modern eye.
- "Pease" and quantitiesThree pints of shelled peas is roughly 2 lb / 900 g, or about two 1-lb bags of frozen peas. Three quarts of water is 12 cups; the finished quantity will be somewhat less after boiling, enough for a large potful.
- Frozen peas work betterFrozen peas -- The recipe gives no time for the first batch, only "when quite soft." Frozen peas are picked young and blanched, and will soften enough to purée in 10 to 15 minutes; fresh peas may take longer.
- The second addition of peasHalf a pint of young peas simmered a full half hour will go grey and mealy. Add them in the last 3 to 5 minutes so they stay green and whole, which is the entire point of adding them separately.
- Colander versus blenderPressing through a colander with a little water removes the skins and gives a smoother soup than a blender, which chops the hulls in. If you use a blender, pass the purée through a sieve afterwards to match the intended texture.
- ThickeningButter rubbed into flour is the beurre manié method; here the recipe calls for two tablespoons butter and only "a little" flour. Whisk it in off the boil in small pieces and then simmer two or three minutes to cook out the raw flour taste.
- The lettuceChopped lettuce turns up in a number of nineteenth-century green pea soups, for a faint sweetness and body; romaine or another firm-leaved type holds up best. Iceberg mostly contributes water.
- Consistency"As thick as cream" means pouring cream, not whipped. If it tightens past that on standing, loosen with a little of the reserved cooking water rather than fresh water.
- ServingThe "bits of toasted bread" are small croutons cut and toasted dry, scattered on at the table so they do not soften in the pot.
Green pea soup of this kind sits between two older traditions: the dried-pea pottages that fed European households through winter, and the fresh "green pease" soups possible only in the short early-summer window when garden peas were sweet. Cooked lettuce turns up as a thickener and sweetener in a number of English and American soup receipts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Dixie Cook Book, compiled in the 1880s for Southern households, assumed a kitchen garden, and the recipe's call for "young pease" as a late addition implies the first batch was the more mature. Freezing removed the seasonal urgency, making sweet young peas available all year.