St.-Germain Soup.
(Purée à la St.-Germain.)
Put one pint of green dried peas to soak in cold water for twenty-four hours, changing the water occasionally. Melt two ounces of butter in a stewpan, add to it two large well-washed and crisp lettuces, cut up fine, with four large onions and two leeks sliced, half a stick of well-washed celery, four good sprigs of green mint tied together, or a teaspoonful of dried mint in powder, and the peas washed and dried. Fry these all together on the side of the stove for twenty-five to thirty minutes, then mix with them two ounces of pea flour and eight pints of stock, stir occasionally until it comes to the boil, then skim and let it cook at the side of the stove for two and a half to three hours, when the peas should be quite tender. Mix in a basin the raw yolks of four eggs with half a pint of warm cream, stir this together till quite smooth, add a little of Marshall's apple green to colour it, then pour it in the pea mixture, and rub it all through the tammy or a very fine hair sieve. Then return the mixture to the bain marie, stirring it now and again while heating, and let it get perfectly hot, when it will thicken. It should be served when of the consistency of cream; strain it into the tureen, and garnish with cooked green peas, cucumber cut out with a pea cutter, and cooked till tender, and some cooked and shredded lettuce, in the proportion of three tablespoonful of the vegetable to each quart of soup. Profiteroles or croûtons may be handed round with this soup.