When in Naiveté
In Savoury:
Pea Soup
For those days when you’ve realised you trusted someone you ought not to have done, for those days when you feel afraid that your own decisions could have ruined your life or happiness or made your loved ones hurt, or even made your dog cry. For those days when you realize your worth to a person was never really all that much to begin with. For those days when you were naïve, forgive yourself, and have a cup of this soup. Make it. It’ll help.
INGREDIENTS:
Olive Oil | |
Garlic cloves | |
[5-6 slices] | |
Extra Virgin Olive Oil | [For garnish] |
Can of Peas | [2] |
Water | [1 litre] |
Stock Cube | [1-1.5] |
Fresh mint | [4-5 sprigs] |
Salt and Pepper | [To taste] |
Cream | [1 cup] |
[a handful] |
METHOD:
- Pour a tablespoon or two of olive oil into the pan, chop up seven or eight garlic cloves and some sliced chicken mortadella (or salami or even sausage) and fry in the olive oil. Fry the garlic until soft and starting to turn golden-brown. Fry the mortadella just an ickle bit. And if you’re using sausages… which I don’t suggest, really, by the way… fry until they’re cooked and then chop up very fine. I like to use chicken meat, regardless of what form it comes in, and though it’s processed, it’s easier to work with in a soup – this won’t be floating around.
- Take two cans of peas, open, drain and pour into pan.
- Throw in one stock cube and pour in a litre of water.
- Put the pot onto the hob. Let the peas boil on high for an hour.
- Keep pouring more water in if it keeps drying up.
- Take a sprig or two of fresh mint and throw it in.
- Now, we want a thick soup, because this is a meal, not a starter, so make sure that you have just the right amount of water – and that is, after the boiling complete, level with the peas.
- Now, throw in the fried garlic cloves and mortadella/salami/sausage, whatever you’d chosen in the first step. Mix and let everything sink in to each other.
- Now I prefer using a hand-held blender but a normal blender works as well (you should just wait till the peas cool a lot before using a blender) – so if you’re using a hand-held blender, plug it in, make sure the head of the blender is well immersed or you’ll be spraying yourself and everything with mushy peas (I quite like mushy peas, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea… particularly when it’s all over your face and clothes and stove and etc), now turn it on and blend. Slowly but surely, blend.
- If you’ve had to cool the soup, and generally during the blending some cooling happens, put it back on the hob and turn it on again. This time season it (to TASTE – the stock cube has salt content) with salt and maybe pepper.
- After you feel the soup is cooked the way you like it, pour in half or three-quarters a cup of cream, and let simmer for another two minutes.
- Take off the heat, and pour the chopped cheddar (or mozzarella) into the soup and mix until melted. You can heat the soup again if it’s too cold, but I think you should be good.
- When serving, take a tablespoon of cream, put a dollop of it in the middle of the soup bowl(s), if the soup is thick, and remember, we wanted it to be thick (but if it’s not and it tastes good, then no worries), the cream ought to sit where you’ve dolloped it – take the spoon and make swirls with the cream. To garnish – a sprig of mint would look nice, and drizzle a bit of extra-virgin olive oil over the cream and mint.
Serve with toasted French bread – buttered and a hug.
DISCLAIMER: Soup can get very hot, so if you’re tasting while cooking, please take a spoon of it, blow on it a lot – and then taste – definitely don’t taste it if the spoon is steaming. Just don’t get hurt.
