Pea Soup with Parmesan Croutons
Whitechaple High Street in the rain on a cold Thursday day is not a good place on a bicycle. Heavy traffic thunders towards Mile End and the City belching fumes into the damp air and a noxious cocktail un-burnt diesel rainwater, surface water and whatever else has dribbled into the side of this busy London road.
Wheeling my bike past the market, school had finished and boisterous children spilled out of the never ending line of neon lit fast food joints that burnt through the late afternoon gloom. Fried chicken, kebab, halal chicken…I needed to get home.
An hour later I was through the front door to an empty fridge but the day had defeated me and there was no way I was venturing out into the darkness again for supplies. Nothing, but a bag of frozen peas, some frozen chicken stock and onion, garlic, an old crust of parmesan cheese, half a bag of pine nuts at the back of the cupboard and some stale bread. Hungry after a day on the bicycle I was hungry and I got to work on this simple soup that brought me back to life.
- 800g fresh frozen peas
- one large onion, well chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 litre of good chicken stock
- 30g toasted pine nuts
- juice of one lemon
- 6 slices of brown bread
- olive oil
- 100g of parmesan cheese
- one large leek (optional)
1. Sweat the onion and leek in a little oil until soft and translucent
2. Pour in the stock and then the peas. Simmer for 15 minutes and then blitz with hand blender until you have a pale green soup. I like to leave a few peas un-whizzed to add some color and texture.
3. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Ground the pine nuts, lemon juice and now mix into the soup.
5. Dice the bread and fry in a little oil on each side until golden and crispy. Remove from pan sprinkle with parmesan and grill until the cheese is brown.
6. garnish each bowl of soup with a few croutons, ground black pepper and extra shavings of parmesan.
7. A blog of creme fresh is nice too at this point but i didn't have any. Boo Hoo!
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