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Potage, Armenonville
Boil a pint of split green peas in boiling water five minutes, drain on a sieve, then replace in saucepan with a sliced carrot, a sliced onion, two sliced leeks, two sliced branches celery, two ounces salt pork cut in small square pieces and two ounces raw lean ham cut same way. Moisten with two and a half quarts water. Season with light teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, then slowly simmer two hours. Strain soup through a sieve into a basin, then through a Chinese strainer into a saucepan and keep hot. Cut a carrot, an onion and two branches celery in exceedingly small square pieces and place in a small saucepan with an ounce butter and one teaspoon sugar, and gently fry fifteen minutes. Pour in a half gill white wine and let reduce until nearly dry, then add to soup. Boil two ounces tapioca pearls in pint boiling water with half teaspoon salt forty minutes, drain on sieve and thoroughly wash in cold water, then add to the soup, mix well, boil for five minutes. Pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A classic French split-pea soup finished with two garnishes: a sweated brunoise of vegetables and cooked tapioca pearls. Nothing here is difficult, but the tapioca timing and the final straining need attention.
- A half gill of white wineA gill is half a cup, so a half gill is 4 tablespoons (2 fl oz). Reduce it with the diced vegetables until the pan is almost dry before adding it to the soup.
- Chinese strainerA chinois, the conical fine-mesh strainer. The soup goes first through an ordinary sieve to catch the vegetables and pork, then through the chinois for a smooth body. A fine sieve lined with a doubled layer of cheesecloth does the same work.
- The five-minute blanchThe recipe boils and drains the peas before they go back in the pan; the usual reason given for this is to rid them of scum and a raw taste. Follow it as written rather than substituting an overnight soak, since the two-hour simmer is timed for peas treated this way.
- Tapioca timingForty minutes suits large old-style pearls. Modern small pearl tapioca cooks much faster, often in around fifteen minutes, and will break down to paste if boiled for forty, so check the package. Cook until the pearls are translucent with only a pinpoint of white at the centre, then drain and rinse in cold water as directed; the rinse washes off loose surface starch.
- Salt pork and raw lean hamUse unsmoked salt pork or pancetta and a piece of raw cured ham such as prosciutto or a ham hock trimming. Ordinary cooked deli ham contributes little. Taste before adding the teaspoon of salt; between the pork and the ham the soup may already be seasoned enough.
- Cut sizesThe garnish vegetables should be a true brunoise, about 1/8 inch. Sweat them in the butter and sugar over low heat for the full fifteen minutes without browning — they should be glazed and tender, not caramelised.
- ConsistencyTwo and a half quarts of water to a pint of peas gives a thin soup by modern taste, and it will thicken as it stands. Hold back some of the liquid or reduce it a little if you want more body.
- YieldAbout 2 quarts after straining and reduction — six to eight first-course servings. Serve it hot; the tapioca stiffens as the soup cools.
Armenonville is a place name, not a cook's: the Pavillon d'Armenonville in the Bois de Boulogne was one of the fashionable Paris restaurants of the Belle Époque, and French kitchens of the period are often said to have borrowed such names for garnishes and soups. As with Soubise or Crécy, the label signals a fixed set of finishing touches rather than a single invented dish — here a split-pea base lightened by straining and dressed with a sweet glazed brunoise and tapioca pearls. Tapioca in clear and puréed soups was a mark of a good table in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the practice faded as the twentieth century went on. The recipe's careful staging — blanch, simmer, double-strain, add garnishes separately at the end — is the working method of a professional hotel kitchen.