Time: 20 minutes · Serves: 4
What you need
- 500 g freshly shelled peas, or frozen peas, used straight from the bag
- 15–20 fresh mint leaves (a small bunch)
- 1 medium onion
- 1 litre vegetable stock (a good quality stock cube is fine)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
- Crème fraîche or natural yoghurt, to serve
- A few extra mint leaves, to serve
Method
- Peel and finely dice the onion. Warm the olive oil in a medium saucepan over a low heat and cook the onion gently for 8–10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until completely soft and translucent. Do not let it brown, low and slow here gives a sweeter, more delicate base flavour.
- Pour in the stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Add the peas and cook for 3–4 minutes, just long enough to heat them through and make them tender. If using fresh peas, taste one to check. Do not overcook them: the moment they are done, they need to come off the heat.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the fresh mint leaves immediately. Blend at once, either with a stick blender in the pan (be careful of splashing) or by ladling into a jug blender in batches. Blend until completely smooth.
- Season generously with salt and black pepper. Taste it, the soup should be bright, fresh, and clearly of peas and mint. Adjust as needed.
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To serve warm: reheat very gently over a low heat. Do not boil it again once blended or the colour will dull.
To serve chilled: pour into a bowl or jug, cover, and refrigerate for at least an hour. It will thicken slightly as it cools, you can thin it with a splash of cold water or stock if you prefer a looser consistency. - Ladle into bowls and finish with a swirl of crème fraîche or yoghurt and a few fresh mint leaves.
Tips
- Speed is the key to keeping the soup brilliantly green. The moment the peas are cooked, get them blended. The longer they sit in hot liquid, the more the vivid colour fades.
- Frozen peas are sometimes sweeter than fresh, particularly if the fresh ones were picked a day or two ago. Do not hesitate to use them, this is one of those recipes where frozen is genuinely excellent.
- For a heartier soup, replace a quarter of the peas with cooked runner beans or broad beans.
- Leftover soup keeps in the fridge for three days. It does not freeze particularly well once blended, the texture can become grainy on defrosting.