Minted Petite Pois and Potato Soup with 'Butter' Grilled Ciabatta Slices

I know, I complain that it's too hot too cook then I go and make some soup.... well, the thing is I came back from holiday and found my rather large sack of potatoes desperately needing using up (I refuse to throw out food!) So found this recipe and thought it looked nice, plus figured the flavours of pea and mint made it more of a summery dish anyway.

Well, it turned out so good!!! A few of the comments on there from others mentioned it being bland so I did add a couple cloves of garlic as recommended and seasoned well. When I first tried it before adding the mint, it wasn't necessarily bland but it was lacking something. Then I added the mint. Oh my god, that completely brought all the flavours out and totally makes this soup. So do not do like others on there and omit the mint or replace it, seriously.... Man I'm bossy today :)

The ciabatta toasts went really nice with this too. Grilling makes the ciabatta nice and crisp so you can break it into your soup and have like croutons. Nice.

Minted Petite Pois and Potato Soup:

25g vegan margarine
1 large onion, diced
700g potatoes, peeled weight, cut into small dice (you will be reserving some so don't cut too big)
1 litre vegetable stock -I made mine with 4 tsp marigold vegan powder, not the low sodium one.
350g frozen petite pois (or regular frozen peas, that's just what I had)
2 large cloves garlic, pureed
good handful of fresh mint, chopped
lots of freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste, I don't add any extra as my stock powder is salty enough.

Heat the margarine in a large saucepan and fry the onion with a few grinds of black pepper until the onion is transparent and soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic until it's incorporated and not a big lump then add the potatoes and stock. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 10 - 15 minutes or until the potatoes are just tender. Add the peas when there is about 6 minutes left.

Use a slotted spoon to remove about a quarter of the veg and set aside. Blend the remaining soup in a blender until smooth and return to the pan. Add the salt, some more pepper and mint and taste, adjust the seasonings if need be. Add the reserved veg and heat through, you can add a splash more hot water if it is way too thick but note that this is a supposed to be thick soup.

Serves 4-6, we generally get 5 servings out of this.

Ciabatta Toasts:

1 ciabatta loaf or 2 ciabatta rolls, sliced about 1" thick
vegan margarine

Spread one side of the slices with the margarine. Place the slices on a hot grill pan and cook until golden with darker lines. Spread the other side, flip over and cook the other side the same.

♥

Tweet

Pin It