from four to five hours. When the peas are old and stale even longer time
should be allowed. Then rub the whole through a wire sieve, put the soup
back into the saucepan, and stir it while you make it hot or it will burn.
In ordinary cookery, pea soup is invariably made from some kind of greasy
stock, more especially the water in which pickled pork has been boiled. In
the present instance we have no kind of fat to counteract the natural
dryness of the pea-flour. We must therefore add, before sending to table,
two or three ounces of butter. It will be found best to dissolve the
butter in the saucepan before adding the soup to be warmed up, as it is
then much less likely to stick to the bottom of the saucepan and burn.
Fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup separately, as well
as dried and powdered mint. The general mistake people make is, they do
not have sufficient mint.


PEA SOUP, FROM DRIED GREEN PEAS.--Proceed as in the above recipe in every
respect, substituting dried green peas for ordinary yellow split peas.
Colour the soup green by adding a large handful of spinach before it is
rubbed through the wire sieve, or add a small quantity of spinach extract
(vegetable colouring sold by grocers in bottles); dried mint and fried or
toasted bread should be served with the soup, as with the other.


PEA SOUP, GREEN (FRESH).--Take half a peck of young peas, shell them, and
throw the peas into cold water. Put all the shells into a quart or more of
stock or water. Put in also a handful of spinach if possible, a few sprigs
of parsley, a dozen fresh mint-leaves and half a dozen small, fresh, green
onions. Boil these for an hour, or rather more, and then rub the whole
through a wire sieve. You cannot rub all the shells through; but you will
be able to rub a great part through, that which is left in the sieve being