Pea Pod Soup

Pea pod soup with yoghurt and a mint oil

So I was halfway to the compost bin when I asked myself why I was throwing out tomorrow’s tea before I’d eaten it. I’d been shelling peas and had a bowl of empty pea pods in my hand. Come on Dawes, they’re the making of pea pod soup.

When fresh peas in the pods cost more than a bag of frozen petit pois you don’t want to waste, do you? I sorted through the pods and tossed out any wrinkly ones, washed the rest and roughly chopped them.

What happens next depends on your pods. If they are young, tender and very fresh and you’ve taken the trouble to string them first you can cook them with some onions or shallots, a stalk of celery, peas and perhaps some cooked potato for texture and a handful of mint. You want the overwhelming flavour to be peas and the colour to be green so forget carrots. Simmer in stock, blitz and serve. If you pass it through a sieve it will be a shade more delicate.

If the pods are getting on a bit I’d use them to make a vegetable stock and then go on to make your soup. The one in the picture has some courgettes, outer leaves of lettuce and lemony sorrel. Plus some peas, fresh and frozen.

Then I got all cheffy and drizzled some mint oil (made from bashing up some fresh mint in virgin olive oil) and a little yoghurt for garnish. I haven’t reviewed restaurants for 26 years without learning a few tricks.

I’ve made a few pea pod soups this summer and they’ve varied from very good to OK. It all depends on the pods.

I eventually made a trip to the compost bin and by now the pods were a mush. But I’d got a nice little meal out of them for very little cost.

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Don’t waste your pods when you shell peas