No. 282

Puree of Peas with Croutons or Rice

Puree de Pois aux Croutons ou au Riz

Have one pound of dry peas (green split peas), wash them well changing the water until it is perfectly clear, then put them into a saucepan with three quarts of beef stock or water, one carrot cut lengthwise in four, two large onions with four cloves, salt and pepper. Boil and let cook slowly on the range or in a slack oven, then remove the carrots and cloves, and pass the peas through a fine sieve with the onions. Season properly and moisten as required, then let the soup boil up again, skim it and work in about four ounces of butter. Serve a garnishing of bread croutons cut in quarter inch dice and fried in butter, or else some rice boiled in consomme.

← No. 281 Puree of Reedbirds or Larks with Chestnuts Soups & Broths No. 283 Puree of Wild Ducks, [canvasback, Redhead or →

For the Modern Kitchen

A plain split pea soup from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, built on stock and finished with a great deal of butter. The proportions and method translate directly; only the vessels and the sieve need rethinking.

Slack ovenA slack oven is usually reckoned at roughly 250-300F. It is simply a way of holding the pot at a bare simmer without scorching the peas, which settle and stick over direct heat. A heavy covered pot in a low oven does much the same work as a low burner with occasional stirring.
Liquid to peasThree quarts to one pound of split peas is generous, and the recipe has you "moisten as required" after sieving. Start with about two and a half quarts if you want a thicker purée and hold back the rest to adjust.
The clovesStick the four cloves into the two onions so they can be found and removed later; the instruction to "remove the carrots and cloves" assumes they are still whole. The onions themselves go through the sieve with the peas.
Passing through a sieveA blender or immersion blender gets you most of the way, but split pea skins stay gritty. Blend first, then push through a fine sieve or chinois for the texture the original intends.
Salt and the peasThe recipe salts at the start, so keep that light. Old peas and hard water can leave them stubborn (salt's effect is much disputed); correct the seasoning after the purée is made and thinned, as the recipe directs.
Four ounces of butterThat is one full stick, worked in off the boil after skimming. Add it in pieces with the pot off the heat so it emulsifies rather than splitting; the soup will separate if it boils hard afterward.
Croutons and riceQuarter-inch dice fried in butter, added at the table so they stay crisp. The rice alternative should be cooked separately in consommé and spooned in, not simmered in the soup, which would cloud and thicken it.
YieldRoughly three quarts finished, serving eight to ten as a first course. It thickens considerably on cooling and will need thinning when reheated.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its soup chapter runs to hundreds of numbered formulas of exactly this kind: a base preparation, stated once, with two or three garnishes offered as variations. A purée of dried peas is one of the oldest continuously made soups in European cooking, dried pulses being the winter vegetable before canning; the name potage Saint-Germain belongs properly to a fresh green pea purée rather than to a dried split pea soup, and its origin is a matter of folk tradition, often said to honor the Paris suburb where early green peas were grown and sometimes attributed instead to the Comte de Saint-Germain. Ranhofer's neighbors in the numbering are worth noting for what they say about the period's larder: reedbirds and larks on one side, canvasback duck on the other, songbirds and wild waterfowl then being ordinary restaurant goods in a way they are not now.