Broad Bean and Pea Soup

Can you believe that Christmas has been and gone? Already? We hope that yours was wonderful and that you are still enjoying the festive season. Ours was a mix of quiet and busy times, hectic last minute baking, sunshine and storms, and lots of yummy summer fruits and vegetables – some of our favourite produce is in season right now: cherries! Blueberries! Figs! Mangoes! We haven’t quite come up with a recipe that incorporates them all yet, but we’re working on it 🙂

Oh yes, and presents! Hopefully Santa brought you lots of those, and you are still busy exploring and playing with them. I got some new toys, and my favourite so far is this little sleeping tent:

Mummy got this, and she has been very busy planning our menus based on the contents 🙂 It’s a great book, the photography is amazing, and the recipes sound great and mostly very easy to put together, even by the most time-challenged cooks. It’s already given us plenty of inspiration for lots of different seasonal vegetables, which we can’t wait to try and share the results with you.

The first experiment is a very easy broad bean and pea soup – after all, we are in lazy summer holidays mode here in the Bistro kitchen, so anything that is quick and tasty sounds wonderful right now. The soup can be served either warm or cold and could be easily made even in winter using frozen peas.

Broad Bean and Pea Soup

300 g podded broad beans

300 g shelled peas

1 onion, diced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

Leaves from a few sprigs of fresh thyme

2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley

1 l chicken or vegetable stock

Heat oil and butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

Add diced onion and thyme leaves and sauté gently until the onion is soft and translucent, approximately 12-15 minutes.

Add stock, beans and peas, season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for another 10-15 minutes, until the beans and peas are soft.

Remove from the heat, add in chopped parsley and puree in a food processor or with a stick blender.

Ladle into bowls and drizzle with some more olive oil just before serving. Alternatively, the soup can be served chilled.

Serves 4.