Throwback Thursday: Green Pea Soup

This soup looks great garnished with mung sprouts or grated beetroot for added colour and texture.

This soup has been a staple in our house for many years, and was first mentioned here way back in 2009. Finally, I got round to writing down the recipe properly so we could share it with you. It's a great quick and easy crowd-pleaser on chilly days.

Serves around 6:
150g white cabbage, sliced finely
2 tabs cold-pressed sunflower oil
1 tab soy sauce
a pinch of compound hing
a pinch of seasalt
about 300g cooked marrowfat dried peas (they are sort of pale greyish-green; sorry, I don't know what they are called outside the UK)
400g fresh/ frozen green garden peas/ petit pois
1l water
about 1 tab dried herbes de Provence/ thyme/ mint
1/3 tsp black pepper
2 tsps seasalt.

• First take the cabbage, oil, soy sauce, hing and the pich of seasalt and fry the cabbage in the oil, stirring in the seasonings. (This is instead of using onions, and makes a tasty alternative stock.)
• Add the marrowfat peas, green peas and water and simmer it all until the green peas are cooked- usually just a couple of minutes, depending on whether they are frozen or not.
• Blend it all until smooth.
• Add the pepper, dried herbs and seasalt.
• Serve with a garnish of mung sprouts or colourful grated raw beetroot and a hearty chunk of whatever kind of home made bread you like.