A Peas Pudding

Instructions

1. Separate carefully from a pint of good mellow split peas, all that are worm-eaten; wash the remainder well, and soak them for a night in plenty of soft water.
2. The following day tie them up in a thick pudding cloth, giving them room to swell, cover them well with cold soft water and boil them gently from two hours to two and a half: if they are not then quite tender, they are of bad quality, and cannot be rendered so.
3. Lift them into a cullender, untie the cloth, and crush them to a paste with a wooden spoon.
4. Stir in a good slice of butter, and a seasoning of pepper and salt, tie them up again very tight, and boil them for half an hour.
5. Turn the pudding gently into a dish that it may not break, and serve it as hot as possible.
6. For the more modern method, soak and boil the peas as above, drain the water well from them before the cloth is untied, rub them through a cullender or sieve, mix the seasoning and the butter thoroughly with them, then add to them gradually three well whisked eggs, tie the mixture tightly and closely in a floured cloth, and boil it for one hour.
7. Proportions: Good split peas, 1 pint; soaked in soft water 1 night. Boiled 2 to 2-1/2 hours. Butter, 1 oz.: salt, pepper: boil again 20 to 30 minutes. Or: butter, 1-1/2 oz.; eggs, 3: boiled 1 hour.
8. Note: When soft water cannot be had, half a teaspoonful of carbonate of soda must be stirred into that in which the peas are boiled. They must have room to swell or they will be hard; but if too much be given them they will be watery, and it will be difficult to convert them into a pudding at all.