… as regular readers of my blog will know, I often list ‘good quality vegetable stock’ as an ingredient for soups and stews. Now, it’s been an age since i’ve made my own vegetable stock from actual vegetables. I know, it’s a sin and I often make chicken stock from left-over carcasses I just don’t seem to do it with the veg and to be honest there are a couple of very good powdered vegetable stocks on the market including Essential Cuisine and my go-to favourite Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon but i’ve recently discovered that it’s not just the quality of the vegetable stock that makes a difference but the water itself is a huge contributor to taste… fortunately i have my handy new BRITA water-filter jug to help me filter out those nasties to produce a purer tasting finished product and before you slam me down for sounding like one giant infomercial for the water filter company think about it for one second… if you’re going to spend good money on products such as vegetables which you’ve taken the effort to locally source, buy seasonably and spend hard earned cash on, why then wouldn’t you make the effort with all the ingredients…
chilled pea and mint soup
this is the most simple of all soups ever known to man… the only thing making it even more simple is the refrigeration part. If you chose not to chill it it’s basically peas, mint and water. So it feels a little bit like a con that this is my entry for this months random recipes challenge which asks us to choose the recipe on page 40 of our 40th cookbook… don’t get me wrong, i’m not complaining about it but the whole point of the challenge is that it’s supposed to make you think outside of the box and use recipes and cook books that you wouldn’t always use. To be honest I have learnt quite a bit from this soup… one thing is that you don’t always need to start a soup with a sautéed onion, as I tend to do and I really had to try hard not to add one here but it tasted simply divine…
600ml good vegetable stock – using filtered water
750g frozen or fresh peas
200ml double cream – i used 150ml semi-skinned milk and 2 tablespoons TOTAL Greek Yoghurt
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
seasoning
a little extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
In a large pan, bring the vegetable stock to a boil, add the peas, turn down the heat and let them simmer for 5 mins
Take the pan off the heat, add the cream or milk and yoghurt, lemon and fresh mint and let it cool slightly before whizzing into a smooth soup. Chill for at least an hour until fully cooled.
Serve with a drizzle of oil and some freshly torn mint leaves.
as well as entering this into my own random recipes challenge I am also entering it into the Better with BRITA competition… if you want to enter yourself, the entry details can be found on the Delicious Magazine website… the competition prize is the chance to showcase your food at the Big Feastival this summer, something which sounds a little bit exciting don’t you think…
eat and of course, enjoy!
The mere thought of cold soup makes me shiver, but this looks utterly lovely. What book did you get it from again? I have had a RR fail so far – am searching through a very random Gascony cookbook and keep landing on recipes involving whole black truffles, jointed hares and other such delicacies unavailable at my nearest food emporiums. Will keep looking…
Right, I'm off to pod a pile of peas that I've bought and set to on this soup to chill for later… Would never have thought to use filtered water either, so will do so – thanks for the tip!
I am being reminded so regularly these days how lucky we are in Scotland to have such great tap water. 🙂 Your soup looks fabulous! Peas are my absolute favourite veg of all time and I love how well it has kept its colour. I want to dig in right now!
I LOVE the vibrant colours you get in a filtered water soup Dom and that looks so fresh and green! Karen
I know what you mean about the onion in the soup recipe thing, whenever I see a soup recipe missing an onion I'm convinced they've made an error! Lovely, fresh, zingy looking soup Dom, perfect for these warm sunny days
This sounds so refreshing. And the colour is fantastic. Great random recipe!
So funny. I love cold soup but not sure about jointing a hare!
Hope you do. It's an incredible and tasty soup x
I'm a massive fan of tap water and very rarely buy bottled water which is why I love these filter jugs. You're simply enhancing what comes out of the tap for free! Love peas too!
Thanks honey #nofilter!
Glad it's not just me! So good on a hot day!
Thanks. I know I was very lucky with my pick.
What a lovely simple soup; vibrant and bursting with flavour I am sure! MMm!
I misread it as pean soup and had to read on to find what a pean was! I love pea and mint soup and yours looks lovely. I never thought of serving it chilled though
Lovely easy recipe and I like the picture too. I am thinking what to add to the competition too.
Soup has been a mainstay of late … this looks so wonderful! I think frozen peas are the way to go when one needs that many for a recipe such as this … unless you live on a pea farm where peas are literally sitting in bushel baskets on the counter tops! … 😉
Pea and mint soup is one of my absolute favourites, but I've never thought to try it chilled. Looks delicious and such a beautiful vibrant green.