Green Pea Potage
A nice warm filling soup, suitable for vegetarians as well as the rest
of us. Goes well with bacon (though serve that separately if you want the
vegetarians to eat this)
Original sources
“Green Pea Potage”, from the “Curye on Inglysch”, via “The Medieval
CookBook” by Maggie Black
Perrey of pesoun. Take pesoun and seeth hem fast, and couere
hem, til thei berst; thenne take hem up and cole hem thurgh a cloth. Take
oynouns and mynce hem, and seeth hem in the same sewe, and oile therwith;
cast therto sugur, salt, and safroun, and seeth hem wel therafter, and
serue hem forth.
“Split pea soup with Beans and Onions” from “Two fifteenth-century cookery
books” via “Seven Hundred years of English cooking” by Maxime McKendrey
Lange wortes de pesoun:
Take grene pesyn, an washe hem clene an caste hem on a putte, an boyle
til they breste, an thanne take hem vyppe of the potte, an put hem with
brothe yn a-nother potte, an lete hem kele,; than draw hem thorw a straynowre
in-to a fayre potte, an than take oynonys, an screde hem in to or thre,
an take hole wortys and boyle hem in fayre water: and take hem vyppe, an
ley hem on a fayre bord, an cytte on iij or iiij, an key hem to the oynonys
in the potte, to be drawyd pesyn; an let hem boyle tyl they ben tendyr;
an thanne tak fayre oyle and frye hem, or ellys sum fresche brothe of sum
maner fresche fysshe, an caste there-to, an Saffron, an salt a quantyte,
and serue it forth.
Recipe
Combining these two with some guesswork, the process looks something like
this.
-
Take split peas, wash, boil until they burst (my guess would be about 1½
hours)
-
Cool, and make into a puree, by passing through a strainer or a cloth
(or, of course, using a demon!)
-
If you want to add beans, boil them whole, then chop them (into "iij or
iiij"!)
-
Chop your onions (somewhere between “in two” and “mince”), par-boil, then
fry them (just adding the oil to the soup at the same time doesn’t sound
as good to me!)
-
Add onions to the pea puree, and also salt, sugar, and saffron. (I’m a
little surprised by the sugar? Wouldn’t honey have been cheaper?)
-
Simmer the whole lot together until the flavours combine.
-
(Optional: Put in large pot, save till the revel the next day. Reheat when you get there.
However, be warned that if you transport it in plastic bottles, it may ferment.
Opening the bottles can then produce explosive results, which is why the kitchen at Briavels has a green ceiling,
and this is now known as Exploding Pea soup.)
And in fact Rhys did us a cartoon on the subject for an early Oak Leaf
-
Serve
Quantities
For May Revel lunch, aiming to feed about a dozen people, I used:
-
a pound of dried peas
-
5 pints of water
-
Half a dozen onions (well, one ½ kg bag of frozen pre-chopped)
-
Salt, oil, etc. to taste and depending on pan size
-
About a teaspoon of saffron. (Yes, I do buy my saffron abroad, where it's
cheap!)
Most recent revision 29th August 1999
