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Chilled Spring Pea Soup

 
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 “It breathes reassurance, it offers consolation; after a weary day, it
promotes sociability… There is nothing like a bowl of hot soup…”
~ Louis DeGouy, The Soup Book

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La Belle Cuisine

Chilled Spring Pea Soup

Daniel Boulud's
Cafe Boulud Cookbook:
French-American Recipes
for the Home Cook
by Daniel Boulud and Dorie Greenspan, 1999, Scribner

“There are many reasons to celebrate the arrival of spring, and garden peas are
one of them. At Café Boulud, we’re delighted when the first batch of peas
shows up so we can make them sublime chilled soup swirled with a few spoon-
fuls of rosemary-infused cream and topped with bits of crisp bacon. Because
only ingredients that blend with and intensify the flavors of peas are used,
thesoup tastes even fresher, brighter, and more pea-like than just-picked peas.
When I can, I like to prepare this soup with a variety of peas – I love it with
sweet peas, sugar snaps, snow peas, and fava beans, which became an honorary member of the pea family here – but if you make it with only English sweet
peas, you’ll recreate the French classic Potage St.-Germain, a creamy pea
soup named for the town outside Paris where peas used to be grown. (Now
that St. Germain has become a chic suburb, I think they’ve given up their
pea patches.) [Quelle dommage!]

Makes 6 servings

1 ounce slab bacon, cut in half, or
4 slices bacon
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 stalks celery, peeled, trimmed, and thinly sliced
1 small onion, peeled, trimmed, and thinly sliced
1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced, washed and dried
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
5 cups unsalted chicken stock or low-sodium broth
One sprig rosemary
6 cups fresh peas, preferably an assortment,
such as 1 1/2 pounds English sweet peas, shelled;
3/4 pound fava beans, shelled;
1/4 pound sugar snap peas, thinly sliced;
and 1/4 pound snow peas, thinly sliced *
1 bunch Italian [flat-leaf] parsley, leaves only

* If you prefer to save some time and effort (sacrificing the unique flavor of the
Cafe Boulud recipe), the soup can be made using 1/2 pound sugar snap peas,
thinly sliced, and two 10-ounce boxes frozen baby peas, omitting the fava
beans and snow peas.

1. Heat a medium casserole over medium heat and toss in the bacon.
Brown the bacon very well, then pour off all of the rendered fat. Add
the olive oil to the pot and warm it, then add the celery, onion, leek,
and a little pepper. Lower the heat and cook the vegetables, stirring,
until they soften but don’t color, about 15 minutes.
2. Pour in the chicken stock and toss in the sprig of rosemary. Bring to
the boil, lower the heat, and simmer the soup for 15 minutes. Spoon
out and discard the bacon and rosemary. Pour the soup into the con-
tainer of a blender and purée until smooth. (You may have to do this
in batches.) Set the soup aside to cool.
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Toss the sugar snaps and
snow peas into the pot and cook for 3 minutes. Add the sweet peas
and cook for another 3 minutes. Put the fava beans in a colander
and plunge the colander into the pot so that the beans can boil for 1
minute. Toss the parsley into the colander and cook everything a
final minute. Remove the colander, leaving the favas and parsley in
it, turn the other peas into a strainer, and run all the ingredients
under cold water to cool them down quickly and to set their colors;
drain again. Pop the fava beans out of their skins by pressing each
bean between your thumb and index finger. (You may have to pinch
the skin of some of the favas open with your fingernail.) Dry the
parsley leaves by squeezing them between your palms.
4. Put the peas, fava beans, parsley, and a little of the soup into the
container of a blender and whir until the vegetables are smooth.
(You might have to add more of the soup to keep things moving
in the container.) Add the remainder of the soup, in batches, and
whir until you have a smooth mixture. Push the soup through a
fine-mesh strainer to make certain it is smooth and free of small
pieces of pea skin, then taste it for salt and pepper. Pour the soup
into a container and refrigerate until cold.

To drink: An Austrian Grüner Veltliner – it even smells like green peas. 

Featured Archive Recipes:
Spring Pea Soup [unchilled]
Gigi's Potage St. Germain
Pea and Spinach Soup with
Coconut Milk
Spring Vegetable Soup
More from Chef Daniel Boulud:
Asparagus Clafoutis
Oven-Roasted Vegetable Casserole
Potato Gratin Forestier
Simply Sautéed Spinach