Peas Soup Without Meat

Ingredients

• 1 pint split peas
• 5 pints cold water
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 1 turnip
• butter
• 1/2 teaspoonful black pepper
• 1.5 teaspoonful salt
• 1 head celery
• fried or toasted bread
• chili vinegar
• mushroom catsup
• currie-paste or powder

Instructions

1. Wash the split peas well and discard any that are worm-eaten.
2. Put the peas into a pot with five pints of cold water and boil until tolerably tender, about 2 hours or more.
3. While the peas cook, gently fry the onions, grated carrots, and sliced turnip brown in butter.
4. Add the fried vegetables to the peas along with the black pepper and salt.
5. Stew gently, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft enough to pass through a sieve, about 1 to 1½ hours.
6. Rub the entire mixture through a sieve into a clean pan.
7. Bring to the boil, then add the sliced celery head.
8. Cook for 20 minutes and heighten the seasoning if needed.
9. Serve the soup as hot as possible with fried or toasted bread cut into dice, and add chili vinegar, mushroom catsup, or currie-paste as desired.