Fresh Pea Soup

 

   Little Chef C has been reminding me everyday “we need to make Pea Soup.” For Christmas she received Impossible to Easy: 111 Delicious Recipes to Help You Put Great Meals on the Table Every Day, which is where she found this recipe. She likes peas, but I think she was more excited about making a Chef Robert recipe.

  I am seeing a trend. Chef Robert cooks with shallots and grapeseed oil. This recipe has a shallot which is becoming more familiar to us.

   The butter was put in a saucepan to melt.

  Little Chef C “cut” the shallots into a fine dice with the vidalia chopper very easily.

  They were then added to the saucepan. I asked Little Chef C what we were waiting for. She said, “So we wait until they are brown, no clear, that’s right I remember now. It makes them sweet.

  She then added the water, peas, mint leaves, salt and pepper and let them simmer.

  The peas were then spooned into a food processor. This took a while. It would have been easier to strain them in a colander and then dump it into the food processor.

  Little Chef A and C couldn’t get enough of it. Watching them eat it at the dinner table I thought no way would I have been able to get them to taste it if they hadn’t made it themselves. If it was my idea and execution it would have been a terrible dinner
experience.

  For my review: I thought this was quite interesting. I enjoy peas, in fact peas are one of my preferred vegetable. This soup was too much for me. The texture could have been more smooth, and then I probably would have liked it more.  The recipe says it makes 2 servings. That would be true for a main dish, but it served many as a side dish.

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 pat butter (1/2 tablespoon or 1 1/2 teaspoons)

2 or 3 shallots, finely chopped

3 cups fresh or frozen peas (from about 3 pounds fresh garden peas in pods or 1 pound thawed frozen peas), rinsed before use

1 tablepoon minced fresh mint leaves

Salt and white pepper to taste

3 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream

Croutons or crumbled crisp bacon, for garnish

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add the shallots and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add 2 cups water, the peas and the mint leaves and season with salt and a little pepper. Cover and simmer for about 12 minutes for young or frozen peas and up to 18 minutes for large or older peas, stirring occasionally.

When the peas are tender, ladle them into a food processor or blender with a little of the cooking liquid and process until smooth.

Strain the soup back into the saucepan, stir in the cream, and heat through without boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste if needed.