Christmas Dinner '14 : Quick and Easy: Green Pea Soup

Off to a Great Start

I've been wanting to make this delicious soup for a while now. The idea popped in my head after watching yet another documentary from the BBC in which was mentioned 'mushy peas', a British staple in a lot of houses. I know that a green pea soup exists but I've never come across a recipe for it, so I made my own. 

One thing that I am trying to stress with this blog, aside from my governing statement, is to show/educate people on how easy it actually is to cook. Once you begin to make soups from scratch, you can make any soup from scratch. 

All it takes to make a healthy and great tasting soup is to master three basic steps. The first and most important step is the stock. It is always, always preferable to use homemade stock and I don't believe that is an exaggeration. A hearty and flavourful stock is like the foundation of a building - very necessary to have a strong start to your construction in order to build beautiful things from it. Without it you have a shoddy construction that inevitably ends in disappointment, flames, bloodcurdling screams, explosions, ruin…okay, maybe I go too far but you get my point. Make a good stock. 

If needs must, a good quality, unsalted boxed broth will suffice. Please avoid using powdered or cubed bouillon as they are too high in salt and chemicals. Just keep in mind that boxed stocks/broths do not have much flavour so adding more in the way of herbs or spices may be in order, so taste often as cooking progresses.

The second step is the flavour base. In most cases this will be onion, garlic and carrots or onion, celery and carrots as in this recipe. This step is crucial so the freshest and healthiest specimens are best. Large carrots tend to taste woody but once done up in a soup they impart flavour subtly but add a strong body to the soup. Ideally you want to use small carrots but really, if you're buying them at the supermarket, they're probably all going to taste the same.

The third step isn't really a step but more a moment of balance. Once you begin cooking often, you begin 'thinking' cooking often as well. Ideas are always churning away whether you're at the grocery store or staring blankly into your fridge 1/2 hour before supper. You begin to develop an almost instinct on food combinations, seasoning complements, and how to balance flavours as well as nutritional benefits. Each soup you make should contain a complete balance of nutrients even if one ingredient stands out above the others, as in this soup. Vegetarians and vegans of course have a more difficult time maintaining this balance so requires a bit more thinking and planning.

Some soups do just fine as a starter or an appetizer even though they have a slight imbalance of nutrients but if you are preparing one to be a meal, then make a greater effort to include all the food groups. This Green Pea soup is high in fibre and has both beta carotene and vitamin C. Using evaporated milk instead of cream is a lower fat and less expensive option. In 1 tbsp of evaporated milk there are 20 calories while cream has 30; 1 gram of fat while cream has 2.5; 1 gram of protein while cream has 0.3 and vitamin C and calcium are higher by 2% in both.

Here in London a carton of 18% cream, which is the only cream I use, is about $5 while a can of evaporated milk is $1.89. I always have a carton on hand for my coffee but for cooking I use the canned milk most often.

What you need to know

If you don't have a mortar & pestle I recommend you get one. I have a small marble set that has seen great use but is still going strong. A lot of people have been talked into purchasing or even using their existing coffee grinder for their spices but I don't think it's a good way of spending your money or treating your food. In order to justify the expense and the cupboard space of purchasing one (as a uni-tasker), you'd have to grind up large quantities of spice. Many large quantities of spice. Unless you're cooking for 100 people or more, quite often, you couldn't use that much ground spice before the flavourful granules degrade into a tasteless powder. If you plan to use your grinder for coffee and spices, then either clean, clean, clean or get used to the taste of spiced coffee. That may be okay if you ground up cardamon or cinnamon but cumin or fenugreek? Umm, pass. 

A small mortar and pestle set is more than sufficient for the little amount of spices used in most recipes.

Green Pea Soup

1 leek, cut into rings and washed
or 1/2 sweet onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 large carrot, diced
6 allspice berries, crushed
salt
12 peppercorns, cracked
5 cups chicken stock
1 can evaporated milk
approx 1.5 kg or 3 lbs frozen green peas
mint and two thin slices of red pepper for garnish

In a medium sized soup pot sauté leeks, celery, peppers, onions and carrots in a splash of olive oil until softened. Add spices, chicken stock, milk and peas. Bring to boil; reduce heat to simmer. Cook for 20 minutes. Whiz up using hand blender.

Serve with mint and red pepper garnish.



Now what could be simpler?

Try it out and let me know what you think !



all text and photographs ©michelle levasseur The Groaning Board 2014