VeggieDag Thursday: Chilled Pea Soup

A bowl of Chilled Pea Soup —paired with a cold draught Wolaver's Organic Brown Ale— was just the right meal and tonic for a warm June afternoon.

Chilled (but not ice-cold), thickened simply from the purée (but not unctuously so), highlighted with yogurt, and accented with pine nuts and fresh dill. The Brown Ale picked up on the toasted notes of the pignoli.

Served yesterday at Vermilion Restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia; created by Chef Anthony Chittum, who graciously shared the recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 cups English peas, shelled
• 1 cups pea shoots
• 2 TBS mint, roughly chopped
• 1 TBS pine nuts, toasted
• 2 TBS fresh dill,chopped
• 2 TBS Greek yogurt
• 3 garlic cloves, roasted
• s & p, to taste
• extra virgin olive oil, to taste
• 2 cups ice
• 1 cup water

Method of Preparation

• Bring large pot of salted water to a boil.
• Add peas and cook until soft …transfer to ice bath and chill.
• Repeat this process with the pea shoots and mint.
• Remove pea shoots and mint from the ice bath and rough chop.
• Remove peas from water & place in blender with blanched mint, shoots, roasted garlic, s&p, ice and enough water to make a soup consistency.
• Puree on high speed until very smooth.
• Mix the pine nuts, dill and olive oil in a small mixing bowl.
• Divide the soup among four soup bowls.
• Spoon in the olive oil mix into the center of each bowl of soup.
• Drizzle with the yogurt and serve immediately.

************************
Thursdays at Yours For Good Fermentables.com are meatless Thursdays —as inspired by VeggieDag in Ghent, Belgium.

Tom Balthazar [mayor of Ghent, Belgium] has officially declared Thursday meatless in his city of nearly a quarter million people. In an effort to make the connection between meat consumption and greenhouse gases (18 percent of which come from livestock production), Balthazar has asked his fellow civil servants to abstain from meat every Thursday.

Kim O'Donnel
Mighty Appetite
Washingtonpost.com

• Keeping with the 'good fermentables' aspect, I'll often inveigle beer or wine (or spirits) into VeggieDag.
  
• Submissions are welcome from chefs, homecooks, food writers, etc.