My intention this week was to make something a little different: maybe simpler and maybe healthier, probably without meat. I kind of got there; it wasn’t that simple as you can see. It is probably a bit healthier but the eighteenth century still likes its butter and it uses anchovies and spit peas for protein. To find this, I went to the go-to cookery writer of the 1700s – Hannah Glasse. She has a section in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) entitled “For a Fast-Dinner, a Number of good Dishes, which you may make use of for a Table at any other Time.” She was not referring to the timing of these dinners, they were meant for Church of England fast days – days without meat, most often Fridays. Under that heading, she provides this recipe for “A Peas-Soop.”
Modern Recipe Adaptation
Ingredients
- 454g/1lbs/2cups of dry split green peas, rinsed and picked through
- About 4.5L of water, divided
- 5 anchovy filets, drained, divided
- 3g/1 tsp mixed peppercorns
- 3g/1 scant tsp mace plus a small pinch
- 2 whole cloves
- A bundle of sprigs of mixed herbs (I used 1 sage, 1 oregano, 1 thyme and 1 bay leaf)
- ½ large onion, the half cut into thirds
- A good handful of celery leaves
- 1 tbsp dried mint
- 4 large celery stalks, chopped relatively small
- 250g of fresh spinach, divided
- 300g of French bread or rolls, you need at least some crust left whole for the presentation (I used three rolls I made - altered slightly - from this period recipe adaption - https://savoringthepast.net/2012/07/09/18th-century-no-knead-french-bread )
- 25g/5 tsp of butter, divided
- 1 egg, beaten
- 15g/1 tbsp flour
- A large pinch of nutmeg
- Salt to taste
- If you want an easier modern version of things, you will need some cheesecloth for a bouquet garni and a blender, otherwise some food safe string for the bundle of herbs, a good sieve or chinois and your pots.
- This version of the recipe takes about 3 hours, if you don't make your own bread.
- I generally halved Glasse’s ingredients though I found, maybe because my split peas were drier and/or I am in a drier climate, I needed more water than that ratio.
- I could not find sorrel for the bread balls and did not use extra spinach or mint for garnish.
Instructions
- Begin by adding your split peas to 2.5L of water in a large pot over high heat. Bring them to a full boil then reduce the heat to medium-low to keep at a low boil. Cook until somewhat soft - about 1 1/2 hours - adding water as needed to keep the peas well covered.
I needed to add another 1L at various points.
- When peas are soft, add 4 of your anchovy filets, the peppercorns, 3g of mace, the cloves, herb bundle, onion, celery leaves and mint. Add another 500ml of water at this point to make sure everything is covered.
Glasse's recipe calls for 2 anchovies, which I presume means whole fish, so my halving everything else in mind, I still went with 4 fillets to replace some of the flavour the rest of the fish would provide. Also, I did not salt anything until the end, partially because modern anchovy filets are salted.
If you want to make things easier than what I attempted, make a kind of bouquet garni at this point. Put your peppercorns, cloves and herbs (they don’t need to be in a bundle) in a small square of cheese cloth, tie that up to make a little bag and add.)
- Cover and boil this mixture until the peas are completely falling apart, about another hour.
- While this cooks, put your chopped celery stalks and 2 handfuls of spinach in a medium pot over medium heat with 500ml of water. Stew until celery is tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and reserve.
I did not, as Glasse says, cook this until the water was almost “wasted” or boiled away.
- Make your garnishes while these both cook.
- Halve two French rolls, if using, and hollow them out carefully. If using bread, cut about 5 cm off each end and hollow those out. Reserving the crumb (inside) in both instances.
As I mentioned, I used “18th Century No-Knead French Bread” by Kevin Carter at the link above. I, however, made it into 5 rolls and cooked them on a pizza stone, not in a Dutch oven, for 25 minutes.)
- In a medium frying pan, fry these hollow crusts in 5g of butter until they take on a little more colour. Set aside.
- In the same pan, cook 3 handfuls of spinach in 15g of butter. Season with salt to taste and fill the hollow crust of the bread or buns. Set aside.
- In small bowl, mash up your last anchovy fillet and a handful of spinach with a wooden spoon. Add your beaten egg, your reserved bread crumb, a small pinch of mace, a large pinch of nutmeg and your flour. Mix all these together with your hands and form 5 or 6 small balls.
- With another 5g of butter in your frying pan, fry these balls on medium-low. Turn occasionally until they are crisp and coloured on all sides. Set aside.
- Cut or break up the last French roll or 125g of your bread. In another 5g of butter, make croutons by frying the pieces until just crisp. Set aside.
- When the peas are falling apart, remove the soup from the heat and strain through a large sieve or chinois into a very large bowl or another pot. Grab your herb bundle and any large onion pieces or celery leaves and discard. When all the liquid is through the sieve, continue to press the peas against the side with a wooden spoon or similar. You are going to be pressing hard and doing a little work, so the sieve should be fairly solid. The more of the solid you can mash into the liquid in the bowl, the more body and flavour you are adding. When you have pushed most of the solids through, scrape the outside of the sieve into the bowl and return the soup from the bowl to the pot and place back on the heat.
My grandmother passed on a heavy-duty chinois with a pestle for this, so it was slightly easier for me. Easier still would be using the cheesecloth bouquet garni I mentioned earlier, discarding it and then using a hand blender to puree everything while still in the pot. Alternatively, you could let it cool a little and puree it in batches in a traditional blender.
- You should now have 5 components – the pea soup, celery and spinach, spinach-filled bread crusts, the bread-spinach balls and croutons.
- Add the celery and spinach mixture to the soup and heat just long enough to bring them up to temperature. Taste and salt your finished soup. Ladle it into bowls, place a filled crust in the middle, add a ball or two and some croutons. Serve.
Closing Thoughts
This was an interesting and really decent dish. The prevailing background flavour in the soup was mint, which was nice and a bit different. The garnishes were welcomed and make it look like you made an effort, which you did. The balls with the tastes of spinach, anchovy, mace and nutmeg were the most unique part of it.
Most cookery books over the centuries I have been covering make some mention of fast day meals like this one, often having dedicated bills of fare for such times. In an effort to not have meat all the time, I will probably delve into them again.
Hannah Glasse, as I have mentioned in previous entries, is probably the most successful cookery writer of the eighteenth century, not personally maybe, but surely in terms of the influence - credited and otherwise - that her published recipes had on English cuisine. You can see a lot of modern elements beginning to develop in her dishes and she will continue to be a regular source for my future adaptions.
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| The frontispiece and titlepage from 1777 edition of The Art of Cookery |
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