Pea Soup - with Smoked Haddock

Pea soup is something very familiar to me – I have made more then my share of huge pots of this lovely soup over the years – and all of them good in their own way.

It is also such an easy meal to make – basic in fact – but so ancient, wholesome and worthy of making again and again, especially during cold winter days. This is indeed a welcome meal at the end of the week.

Where I come from, in Newfoundland, this type of meal would have been made at the weekends, with salted beef usually and then some lovely dumplings cooked into the bubbling pot when the soup was ready to serve.

Of course my own recipe is a little different (go figure) because I don’t eat beef – but I have since discovered, there are so many other ways to make this dish. One of my favourite being with smoked fish of some kind.

I like it with a nice smoked haddock, but it can be made with anything you have on hand such as smoked salmon, smoked trout, or even oysters. The smoky flavour goes so well with the earthy flavour of the yellow split peas.

Perhaps, like nothing else.

To make pea soup first you need to soak your peas overnight in plenty of water. Then in the morning, place them on a slow boil in a large pot of water with a couple pieces of seaweed. I will use about 2 cups of peas for a 2 litre pot that is less then half full of water.

Next, once this is cooking start adding some ingredients – nearly anything will do. I like to add lots of carrots, turnip, sautéd onions, garlic, a sweet potato, a little celery, fennel, leek – what ever is around can go in the pot.

Then I add a heaping teaspoon each of cumin, turmeric, coriander – salt and pepper to taste and a little allspice or nutmeg. I have been known to also put in some (not much) celery seed, caraway, fennel and so forth as well. Just to give some rich flavours that go well with the peas.

In the meantime, this all cooks away in the pot until the peas become soft and the mixture starts to look creamy and soupy. On a low heat, cooking gently like this it could take up to 4 hours to get this desired consistency.

Once you have your soup ready – take off the heat and blend a little to mostly smooth out the peas, but with a few veggies still intact. Then add your boned, cooked smoked haddock.

Allow this to now sit in the very hot soup for more then an hour – actually this tastes far better the next day – and will be good even a few days later if kept in the fridge.

This soup is lovely served with any bread but we do like Socca or Rosemary Sea salt spelt bread to dip into this rich and tasty meal.

April

Pea soup - ready for haddock!