Pease Pudding

In a recent comment on 'The Owl and The Pussycat', catmama asked 'what is Pease Pudding?', so I thought I should share the recipe with you all.

Pease pudding, also referred to as Pease pottage or Pease porridge, is made with split yellow or Carlin peas, water, salt, and spices, often cooked with a bacon or ham joint. Light yellow in colour, it is similar to hummus and is popular in north East England, often served with stottie cakes (a heavy dough-like textured bread), but is also found in the south where it is traditionally served with faggots (meat off-cuts and offal).

It is not confined to the UK however, for my research has uncovered that it is not only one of the dishes that comprises the Jiggs dinner in the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, but is also to be found in Beijing cuisine, called Wandouhuang, an upmarket version evidently being a particular favourite of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-Hsi who ruled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years as Regent, from 1861 to 1908, and encouraged the Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings; here is Gordon Ramsay's recipe for Pease Pudding.

Ingredients

500g yellow split peas, soaked overnight in cold water
1 onion, peeled and quartered,
1 carrot, peeled and quartered
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp malt vinegar

Preparation
Drain the soaked peas and tip into a saucepan. Add the onion, carrot, bay leaves and cover with water (adding some of the stock from the gammon if it's not too salty). Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that rises to the surface. Lower the heat and simmer gently for an hour or until the peas are tender.

Discard the onion, carrot, and bay leaves and tip the peas into a blender. Blitz to a puree, then pour into a clean pan. Add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Gradually beat in the butter a cube at a time. Keep warm until ready to serve, adding a little water if too dry.

If anyone tries this please lets us know what you think of it.

Where else but a spanking library would you get recipes for pease pudding?

Thanks edb. I grew up with a Mother Goose nursery rhyme as follows:

Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold,
Pease pudding in the pot - nine days old.
Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot - nine days old.

- I don't fancy it cold and I certainly don't fancy it nine days old!

Pease pudding!! A truly disgusting concoction! My great grandmother used to inflict it on me whenever I stayed with her! She is the one who bought me things like a pink comb, mirror and brush set for Christmas!! Talk about cruelty to children!

I took a class in fireplace cooking, and pease pudding was one of the dishes we made. The dishes we made were circa U.S. Revolutionary war, and this was included because the peas were a standard fare issued to the soldiers. The recipe we used, (or receipt, as it was called then) was exactly the same as edb's, but we didn't blend it, just ate it as a thick soup, carrots and onions included. The poem was even brough into conversation at the time, and the line "nine days old" comes into play because sometimes more peas were just thrown into the pot as they were needed to keep making more soup.

You did not mention how much butter to add. I have no idea how much a "cube" of butter is. Thanks

My apologies.

20 grams of butter, cut into cubes. How big each cube is I leave up to you!

Pease pudding used to come in a tin! My great grandmother would boil the tin in a saucepan not forgetting to make two holes in the tin first. It came out of the tin like a cake, was an ochre sort of colour and tasted bland but unpleasant. I can't imagine anyone would want to eat it unless they were starving. My great grandmother was too mean to buy herself some false teeth which was why she ate it in large quantities I suppose! If we are going to have a recipe section why not have something worth eating? Anyone know how to make rye bread that is nice and light rather than heavy?

Not to be confused with the culinary masterpiece-Pea fritters, which is Hampshire's way of serving mushy peas.
A ball of mushy peas, most of the liquid squeezed out, dipped in batter and fried.
I still think they are delicious with 'fish and chips', much nicer than mushy peas and always treat myself to one whenever I'm in a chippy in the Hants and Dorset area.
When we were kids and couldn't afford fish it was always 3d of chips and a pea friitter on the way home from scouts. Equivalent in today's money- less than two pence or 5cents !!

Ah, the pea fritter, still my accoutrement of choice when I visit the chippy.

I don't know, why not a pease porridge recipe on a spanking page? The recipe seems to have left out a most important ingredient however. Adding bacon or a meaty ham bone does wonders to the dish - bowl probably. Gives those nice yellow pease a little smoky taste.