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Potage St Germain

Potage St Germain

What would I make this weekend, I wondered. I hadn't made a soup from the Pulses and Nuts section of The Soup Book since early May, and I'm trying to get at least seventy per cent of each different type of soup made by the end of the year. I've made all four of the cheese soups, and as of last week I've made seventy-two per cent of the summer vegetable soups. The winter vegetable and fish soups are the laggards.

Potage St Germain: lettuce and peas added to the stock
Potage St Germain is a kind of pea soup, in case you're wondering, and the recipe is by Marie-Pierre Moine.  The ingredients include butter, large spring onions, split green peas, peas (I used frozen ones), lettuce, egg yolk, creme fraiche, and Madeira or port. Much to my surprise, it took me two hours yesterday to prepare the soup, forty-five minutes longer than I expected. I should be used that by now. Anyway, I started by lining up the ingredients and then I used blades on anything that needed to be chopped or snipped: the bulbs of the spring onions and the lettuce. I rinsed the split green peas and lettuce, and then got the hot stock ready. I got the trusty food processor out - I no longer groan when I see the words food processor and blender in a recipe. Then the cooking began in earnest.

Potage St Germain: green and gorgeous
I sweated the spring onions in a saute pan before pouring in the stock. After twenty minutes I added the peas and lettuce. It was this mixture that had to be whizzed in the food processor, after which it was sieved back into the saute pan. I got out a little bowl in which I combined the egg yolk, creme fraiche and some of the soup. This was whisked into the main soup. The penultimate step was to add some port before finally whisking in diced butter.

I called the spouse and the younger offspring. We sat and we supped. We all enjoyed it very much. Even the younger offspring "mmm-ed" enthusiastically and even I, the great pea hater, lapped it up. There was plenty of it. We had it for dinner last night and finished it off for lunch today.

No time for any extras. Until soup 136.

Minnie
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