Pea soup with fennel seed and orange dressing
Soup: one of the most versatile dishes there are if you ask me. No matter what season it is; you’re just looking for a recipe for a weeknight or for a fancy dinner; you have a lot to spend a or a little; are vegetarian or carnivore: soup is always good!
When I cook a dinner with more than 3 courses there’s always soup on the menu. First, because it’s the easiest meal for adding an extra course to your menu but also because it is easy to prepare.
You can wake me up for most soups but my favourites are surely tomato soup (like this one with roasted tomato and pepper) and pea soup, typical Dutch winters treat; the ultimate comfort food.
This year we had the first fresh peas in our little vegetable garden; a little project of Mr G. He sows, watering, remove weeds and instruct me what to do when he is on a business trip, and I eat the harvest ;-). The taste of fresh, just harvested peas is sweet, what a pity that immediately disappears when you blanch them briefly. Early summer is truly the season of fresh pea, so you can guess what I’ve eaten a lot in recent weeks ;-). Risotto with peas and mint, peas through my salad, peas spread for my sandwich, peas added to spaghetti carbonara; and even then I had some left to blanching and freezing. In short: a great success so I hope Mr G. will sow them again next year.
But back to soup: peas are also great for making a light and fresh summer soup, for which you can of course use frozen instead of fresh ones. They combine well with mint, salty fish, bacon and Parma ham; but thanks to the following recipe by Delicious Magazine I know now that pea, fennel and orange is also a golden trio.
This soup is light, so perfect for a slow summer evening or as part of an extensive menu. I followed the recipe but was left with quite a lot of the dressing so I slightly changed the amounts.
Pea soup with yogurt and orange dressing
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 100 ml mild olive oil
- 1 large sweet onion, chopped
- 1/2 tbsp. fennel seed
- 500 g peas (frozen)
- zest of ½ orange (organic)
- 100 ml thick Turkish or Greek yogurt (Turkish is sweeter)
- 1 clove garlic, unpeeled
- 90 ml fruity olive oil
- 100 ml of fresh orange juice
- Few sprigs of parsley
instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
- Heat the mild olive oil in a large (soup) pan and fry the onions gently for 10 minutes on low heat
- Add the fennel and cook for another 5 minutes
- Add the orange zest, peas and ½ litre of water, season to taste with salt
- Cook the soup for about 10 minutes and then puree it using a hand blender. Add some extra water if the soup is too thick
- Put half of the fruity olive oil in an oven dish and add the garlic
- Roast the garlic for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven
- Boil the orange juice over medium heat until it is syrupy (it took me quite long)
- If the garlic is ready and orange juice boiled down: plop the garlic clove from the skin and use a hand blender to mix with the garlic oil, boiled juice, remaining fruity olive oil and some salt into a dressing
- Lightly stir the yogurt with a little salt
- Serve the soup in bowls, spoon some yogurt in each bowl and sprinkle with the orange dressing. Garnish with some parsley
Serve the remaining dressing at the table so that everyone can take some more to taste.
I thought it was a surprisingly good combination, peas with orange and fennel; this soup is definitely added to my favourites! What’s your favourite soup recipe? I like to hear from you, will you leave a message below?
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