A hot soup for a cool day.
Europe is in the grip of a heatwave, as I have just read on BBC News. Looking at the map I wonder if this is not a harbinger of things to come. Was the UK ever in Europe? For many people, temperatures hovering around the 20°C mark hardly constitutes a heatwave.
The cool temperatures here in London, and the few strawberries growing in the herb trough, remind me of childhood holidays spent in the Cameron Highlands.
The herbs have gone a bit unruly with the recent bursts of rain and we have an excess of parsley and mint. Several pots of parsley pesto are in the freezer, and we have used the mint for late night tisanes and in different salads.
Today the mint is going into a refreshing pea soup, for lunch with HK Sister, Niece Number 2 and Junior 2. I had a thought that, as a family, we do not share a telephone or even a television anymore. A communal meal provides domestic unity through good conversations, shared ideas and a mutual appreciation of nature’s goodness to us.
The soup is really easy to prepare and the economy in ingredients is a vindication of less is more
For the Soup:
100 g onion, quartered
30 g olive oil
750 g frozen green peas, defrosted
750 g vegetable stock
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
60 g fresh mint leaves, roughly sliced
Crème fraiche, for serving (optional)
How to Make:
(I made the soup in my Thermomix. The conventional method follows below.)
Place the onions in the TM bowl and chop 5 seconds /speed 5. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
Add the oil then sauté 3 minutes /120°C / speed 1.
Add the peas, vegetable stock and salt then cook 10 minutes / 100°C / speed 1.
Add the mint leaves and blend 1 minute / speed 10, increasing from speed 4 – 10 in the first 20 seconds.
Check for seasoning and blend again 20 seconds / speed 8.
Serve immediately with a dollop of crème fraiche. The soup keeps and reheats well but the colour will eventually fade from a bright green to a dull grey-green.
How to Make (conventional way):
Chop the onions and place in a pot along with the oil and sauté for 3 minutes.
Add the peas, vegetable stock and salt then simmer gently for 10 minutes.
Remove the soup from the heat, add the mint leaves then blend the soup using a blender or food processor.
Check for seasoning.
Serve immediately with a dollop of crème fraiche. The soup keeps and reheats well but the colour will eventually fade from a bright green to a dull grey-green.
It is a green, green day: fresh mint and matcha latte, pea and mint soup, lettuce, parsley and green tomato salad
As we have three birthday plus Father’s Day in June but could not all meet up together at the same time, we decided to have one catch-all cake before the month is over. The ever popular Malteser and Minstrels Chocolate Cake was rolled out once again, despite my suggesting that we could try the world’s best chocolate cake instead.
I am now preparing to go camping with the Scouts in July. Between now and then I hope to write up my notes on the Dale Chihuly glass installations at Kew Botanical Gardens.