Pea-shells, 3 quarts; water, 3 quarts: 20 to 30 minutes. Liquor from these, 2 quarts; full-sized green peas, 1 quart; large cucumbers, 2 or 3; lettuces, 3; onion, 1 (or more); little parsley; mint, 12 leaves; seasoning of salt and pepper or cayenne: stewed 1 hour.
Obs.—The cucumbers should be pared, quartered, and freed from the seeds before they are added to the soup. The peas, as we have said already more than once, should not be old, but taken at their full growth, before they lose their colour: the youngest of the shells ought to be selected for the liquor.
RICH PEAS SOUP.
Soak a quart of fine yellow split peas for a night, drain them well, and put them into a large soup-pot with five quarts of good brown gravy stock; and when they have boiled gently for half an hour, add to the soup three onions, as many carrots, and a turnip or two, all sliced and fried carefully in butter; stew the whole softly until the peas are reduced to pulp, then add as much salt and cayenne as may be needed to season it well, give it two or three minutes’ boil, and pass it through a sieve, pressing the vegetables with it. Put into a clean saucepan as much as may be required for table, add a little fresh stock to it should it be too thick, and reduce it by quick boiling if too thin; throw in the white part of some fresh celery sliced a quarter of an inch thick, and when this is tender send the soup quickly to table with a dish of small fried or toasted sippets. A dessertspoonful or more of currie-powder greatly improves peas soup: it should be smoothly mixed with a few spoonsful of it, and poured to the remainder when this first begins to boil after having been strained.
Split peas, 1 quart: soaked one night. Good brown gravy soup, 5 quarts: 30 minutes. Onions and carrots browned in butter, 3 of each; turnips, 2: 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours. Cayenne and salt as needed. Soup, 5 pints; celery, sliced, 1 large or 2 small heads: 20 minutes.
Obs.—When more convenient, six pounds of neck of beef well scored and equally and carefully browned, may be boiled gently with the peas and fried vegetables in a gallon of water (which should be poured to them boiling) for four or five hours.
COMMON PEAS SOUP.
Wash well a quart of good split peas, and float off such as remain on the surface of the water; soak them for one night, and boil them with a bit of soda the size of a filbert in just sufficient water to allow them to break to a mash. Put them into from three to four quarts of good beef broth, and stew them in it gently for an hour; then work the whole through a sieve, heat afresh as much as may be required for table, season it with salt and cayenne or common pepper, clear it perfectly from scum, and send it to table with fried or toasted bread. Celery sliced and stewed in it as directed for the rich peas soup, will be found a great improvement to this.
Peas, 1 quart: soaked 1 night; boiled in 2 quarts or rather more of water, 2 to 2-1/2 hours. Beef broth, 3 to 4 quarts: 1 hour. Salt and cayenne or pepper as needed: 3 minutes.