Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

A Pea Green Soup to be Jealous About

Pea soup

Have you ever had pea soup? Green pea soup? Yumilious.

French Husband and I went to see our friend Michel who has an organic fruit and vegetable stand in his fields. Whatever fruit or vegetable is in season and ripe, he picks in the wee hours and sells before noon.

Fresh? It doesn't get any fresher than this.

 

Peas out of pod

 

We bought a couple of kilos of fresh peas in their pods, and walked home.

French Husband shelled the lot.

I made the soup.

 

Spoonful of peas

 

Fresh Chilled Pea Soup

Take the peas out of their pod.

Line them in a row and admire their cute factor.

Measure more four cups worth (kissing each one is optional.)

In a pan of boil water flavored with a cube of vegetable bouillon (I like to make mine and freeze them) add the four cups of fresh peas, plus a yellow onion cut in fourths.

Make sure the water barely covers the peas and onion.

Bring to a boil, then simmer until the onion is soft (ten minutes or so).

Take off the burner, add one cup of cream and blend smooth.

Put the blended soup in the frig until chilled.

Serve with a mint leaf topper.

(Add salt to taste)

 

Everyone who has your fresh pea soup will want more.

Comments

22 responses to “A Pea Green Soup to be Jealous About”

  1. Jeanne

    All we are saying is give PEAS a chance
    Smiles
    Love you sounds delicious.
    Kiss the cook often and season everything with love♥

    Reply
  2. Eileen @ Passions to Pastry

    My first encounter with “fresh” pea soup was in Paris 12 years ago. I still think about that soup! I will make yours today!

    Reply
  3. Tongue in Cheek

    HI E
    Add salt to taste!
    c

    Reply
  4. Jojo

    Having grown up in a farming I spent summers shelling peas and I have to say every summer I buy them just to be able to relax, sit and shell. Growing up I thought I was being punished but as an adult, I long to have time to sit still and engage in something as relaxing as shelling.

    Reply
  5. Ann X

    Thank you! Tomorrow I will be off to market to get a kilo or so – I want, I WANT to try out this recipe.

    Reply
  6. Kathie B

    I recall helping my mother pick, then shell peas fresh from the garden when we visited her parents’ farm up in NorCal’s Redwoods region when I was little. When she and her mother weren’t looking, I’d always sneak a few shelled peas to eat raw instead of putting in the pan — so sweet, fresh, cool and refreshing on a hot afternoon!
    As an adult I raised our peas in our own garden for decades. When we still lived in the DC area, I once mentioned to an elderly neighbor (think of her as a North Carolina-raised “Annie”!) about loving to eat them raw, and she recoiled in horror as she warned that eating peas raw makes people sick!!! She was amazed when I replied that I’d been eating peas raw as well as cooked all my life and had never gotten sick from them yet.
    Suddenly I got the bright idea to ask my neighbor where she ever got the idea that raw peas were harmful. She said that when she and her 11 siblings were growing up poor back in Goldsboro in the first two decades of the 20th century, their parents always had a huge vegetable garden (and a milk-cow) in order to feed the burgeoning family, and some of the older girls (including her) were expected to help with kitchen chores like picking and shelling peas — and that whenever a child would be tempted to try a raw pea, their mother would warn them not to because she said it would make them sick.
    Suddenly the figurative light-bulb came on over my head (like in a comic strip), as it occurred to me that the REAL reason their mother said this was that if her kids knew that raw peas were in fact safe to eat, there’d never have been enough left for dinner! My neighbor decided I was probably right (although I don’t know whether she was ever brave enough to try them raw, but at least she stopped warning me not to).

    Reply
  7. Kathie B

    Visualize Whirled Peas 🙂
    (And no, it’s not original)

    Reply
  8. Kathie B

    And a pinch of sugar.

    Reply
  9. Kathie B

    BBC World Service aired a superb radio program last night in its “Heart and Soul” series profiling Marseille’s multi-culturalism, which I think many T-I-C readers would enjoy hearing:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00sdr86

    Reply
  10. Christine

    Yum! Sounds so fresh and cooling for a hot summer’s day!

    Reply
  11. deb

    Oh, this sounds yummy! We just came back from Scotland where I had a wonderful bowl of pea soup, but never had it made with fresh peas. This recipe may convert my pea soup hating husband! Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  12. Marilyn

    Now if I only liked peas.

    Reply
  13. Zosia

    If I got my hands on that 2 kilos of fresh, sweet peas, I would eat it while shelling and you would have to cook the greed peas pod soup instead 🙂

    Reply
  14. Zosia

    I meant the GREEN peas pod soup or maybe it was a Freudian slip – greed of green peas 🙂

    Reply
  15. Sue

    OH! My mouth is watering! Too bad fresh peas are extremely expensive over here in Japan. :o( Maybe one day when I’m visiting the US…

    Reply
  16. Linda H

    This sounds fabulous! Will look to see when fresh peas show up at Farmer’s Market and try it out.

    Reply
  17. rental mobil jakarta

    Very nice, thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  18. jend’isère

    Just painted a comical canvas with peas! My son loves them in their natural shape, smashing up in soup form doesn’t work for him. Though tomatoes will not be eaten by him unless they are in the form of sauce. Ahh, the challenges for me being the only vegetarian in my family. Vivre les Petit Pois! Long Live Little Peas!

    Reply
  19. Kiki

    you’re right! yummy, yummy.
    As I have no Michel in the Fields…., I buy my peas freshly frozen (yummy, yummy), and make my pea soup from them, with added fresh herbs, freshly ground salt (very, very little), grated black pepper, pure, UNSALTED vegetable stock (which I buy in Switzerland, sorry guys), little water and at the end of the cooking and after having puréed it, adding a dollop of fresh fromage frais (not even crème…) – soooooooooo utterly delicious! Feel like going to buy frozen peas (the French do beautiful tiny peas, oh so good!)
    Bon appétit to you and all who feel inspired to cook a fresh pea soup right now :))))

    Reply
  20. Peggy Braswell

    Hmmm will make that soup today. Your photos made me hungry. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

    Reply
  21. Jenna

    Yum, pea soup. The fresh stuff looks good, I usually use the split dried stuff.

    Reply
  22. Lemon Verbena Lady

    I know this makes no sense at all, but I loved Campbell’s Split Pea soup when I was sick and home from school. Yes, the condensed version and no, I probably wasn’t really sick! Our peas are coming in and this recipe looks much better than Campbell’s! Thanks for sharing as always, Corey.

    Reply

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