Cream of Green Pea Soup Recipe with Mint

Name: Cream of Green Pea Soup Recipe with Mint
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Green peas 400 g; Mint 2-3 sprigs; Parsley 2-3 sprigs; Butter 30 g; Cream (20%) 100 ml; Salt, sugar to taste

The French say: “A dinner without soup is like a house without a front door.” French cuisine is dominated by all kinds of light soups and broths, for example plain broths, consommés (double strength), marmites (with garnish) and puréed soups. Puréed soups are thick soups.

They are usually made from strained ingredients. As a rule they are nourishing, look good and appetizing, and are easily digested. Pick up any book on diet and nutrition and you will see that most of the first courses dieticians recommend are exactly these puréed soups.

The technique is usually simple: cook the ingredients, rub them through a sieve or blend them, then combine with the cooking liquid. Then add seasonings, spices and so on.

Among puréed soups, cream soups stand out, meaning thick soups based on cream, as do veloutés, thick puréed soups enriched with egg yolks.

What I like about puréed soups is that you can make them from almost anything, mostly from the seasonal produce you have in the fridge. Today we made a cream of green pea soup.

More in Vegetable Soups

Pumpkin SoupEasy homemade pumpkin soup: boil the pumpkin with rosemary, blend until smooth and thin with cream or the cooking liquid. Step-by-step recipe with photos.

Sorrel Soup with Spinach and RiceVegetarian sorrel soup on a vegetable broth: sorrel and spinach sautéed in butter with a splash of cream, a little rice and fresh herbs. Step-by-step photos.

Winter Vegetable Soup RecipeLight, clear winter vegetable soup made from frozen peas, green beans and Brussels sprouts plus potatoes and carrots. Step-by-step recipe with photos.

Vegetarian Borscht Without MeatTasty Ukrainian red borscht without meat: beets, carrot and onion braised with tomato, plus beans, potatoes and young cabbage. Ready in 45 minutes.

Kholodnik (Cold Borscht)Kholodnik, a chilled beet soup: beet broth with soured milk or ayran, cucumbers, green onions, dill, eggs and sour cream. A refreshing summer classic.

Ingredients

2 servings

Green peas 400 g
Mint 2-3 sprigs
Parsley 2-3 sprigs
Butter 30 g
Cream (20%) 100 ml
Salt, sugar to taste

Step-by-step recipe

Cook modeKeeps your screen from turning off while the recipe is open

Green peas stopped being a summer-only vegetable long ago, since you can get them freshly frozen all year round. They usually come in convenient packs of 400-500 grams, just right for one batch. You don't even need to thaw them, as they cook quickly and well as they are.
Mint, the herb of Aphrodite, is a strong and well-known aphrodisiac. Besides being wonderfully refreshing in hot weather, it is also incredibly healthy. And generally, given our monotonous and meager diet, we should pay attention to fresh herbs and eat them all year round. Vitamins, you know.
Wash the herbs (mint and parsley) thoroughly, pick off all the leaves and discard the stems. Chop the herbs very finely. Put them in a pot together with the green peas.
Add 1 heaped tsp sugar and salt to taste, and pour in cold water so that it barely covers the peas. The sugar is essential, as it keeps the peas from changing color while cooking. Otherwise the soup turns the color of canned peas: a grayish olive, not at all appetizing.
Set the pot on the heat, bring to a boil and cook on low heat for 15 minutes. In that time the peas will be completely done. By the way, to garnish the soup, set aside 1 tbsp of the cooked peas.
Pour the cooking liquid into a separate container and transfer the peas with the herbs to a food processor or blender. Purée the peas. It is important that the pea skins are ground up, and to be sure you can rub the peas through a sieve. Bits of pea skin in the purée are absolutely unacceptable.
Transfer the pea purée to a pot. Add the butter, the cream and half of the cooking liquid left over from boiling.
Set the pot on the heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. If the soup is too thick, add more of the cooking liquid. Usually, though, all of it is used. The consistency is up to you, and green pea soup can be quite thick.
Simmer the cream soup on the lowest heat for no more than 5 minutes, preferably stirring constantly.
Ladle into bowls and garnish with a sprig of mint, a few peas and 1 tbsp cream. Serve the soup with croutons.