Save the water of boiled pork or beef: if too salt, use only a part, and the other of plain water: or put some roast beef bones, or a ham or bacon bone to give a relish; or an anchovy or two. Set these on with some good whole or split peas, the smaller quantity of water at first the better: simmer till the peas will pulp through a colander; then set that, and some more of the liquor, besides what boiled the peas, some carrots, turnips, celery, and onion, or a leak or two, to stew till all be tender. Celery will take less time, and may be put in an hour before dinner. When ready, put fried bread in dice, dried mint rubbed small, pepper, and, if wanted, salt, in the tureen, and pour the soup upon them.
Green Peas Soup.
In shelling, divide the old from the young, and put the former, with a bit of butter, and a little water into a stewpan, and the old parts of lettuce, an onion or two, a little pepper and salt. Simmer till the peas will pulp through a colander; which when done, add to it some more water, and that which boiled the peas, the best parts of the lettuce, and the young peas, a handful of spinach cut small, pepper, and salt to taste. Stew till the vegetables are quite tender; and a few minutes before serving, throw in some green mint, cut fine.
Should the soup be too thin, a spoonful of rice flour, rubbed down with a bit of butter, and boiled with it, will give it consistence.
Note. If soup or gravy be too weak, the cover of the saucepan should be taken off, and the steam let out, boiling it very quick.
When there is plenty of vegetables, green peas soup needs no meat: but if approved, a pig’s foot, or a small bit of any sort, may be boiled with the old peas, and removed into the second process till the juices shall be obtained. Observe, three or four ounces of butter, will supply richness to a soup without meat, or make it higher with it.
Gravy Soup.
Wash a leg of beef, break the bone, and set it over the fire with five quarts of water, a large bunch of herbs, two onions, sliced and fried, but not burnt, a blade or two of mace, three cloves, twenty Jamaica peppers, and forty black. Simmer till the soup be as rich as you choose; then strain off the meat, which will be fit for the servants’ table. Next day take off the cake of fat, and that will warm with vegetables; or make a piecrust for the same. Have ready such vegetables as you choose to serve, cut in dice, carrot, and turnip, sliced, and simmer till tender. Celery should be stewed in it likewise; and before you serve, boil some vermicelli long enough to be tender, which it will be in fifteen minutes. Add a spoonful of soy, and one of mushroom catsup. Some people do not serve the vegetables, only boil for the flavour. A small roll should be made hot, and kept long enough in the saucepan to swell, and then be sent up in the tureen.
A rich White Soup.
Boil in a small quantity of water a knuckle of Veal, and scrag of mutton, mace, white pepper, two or three onions, and sweet herbs, the day before you want the soup. Next day take off the fat, and put the jelly into a saucepan, with a quarter of a pound of sweet almonds blanched, and beaten to a paste in a mortar with a little water to prevent oiling, and put to it apiece of stale white bread, or crumb of a roll; a bit of cold veal, or white of chicken. Beat these all to a paste with the almond paste, and boil it a few minutes with a pint of raw thick cream, a bit of fresh lemonpeel, and half a blade of mace pounded; then add this thickening to the soup. Let it boil up and strain it into the tureen: if not salt enough, then put it in. If macaroni or vermicelli be served, they should be boiled in the soup, and the thickening be strained after being mixed with a part. A small rasped roll may be put in.