Ärtsoppa (Swedish Yellow Pea and Mustard Soup)

Last month I had a pretty quiet month on the blogging front. I spent most of it overseas eating amazing Sri Lankan foods and learning to cook Sri Lankan curries. So I took a month of featuring recipes from countries around the world - but I'm glad to be back into it this month!  Each month I take a suggestion from a reader and delve into the cuisine of that particular country and share what I find with you. Previously this year I've featured recipes from Croatia, Chad, Bosnia, Iran, Scotland and Cambodia - a great mix of countries, although with a distinctly European flair! If you'd like to suggest a country then hop on here and go for it!

This month I'm continuing the popular European theme and featuring Sweden. Sweden was actually a very popular suggestion, suggested by three separate readers. I'm looking forward to Sweden, actually, as one of my very closest friends lives in Sweden - so should be a valuable mine of information :)

I'm starting off the month with something perfect for the cold weather we are having! Swedish yellow pea soup (Ärtsoppa) is a very popular dish in Sweden, in fact it is a tradition to eat it every Thursday for lunch accompanied by pancakes with jam and whipped cream! This is just the recipe for the soup, but I'll post a recipe for the pancakes at a later date! Ärtsoppa can either be made vegetarian or with the addition of salt pork or ham. Obviously this is a vegetarian one! It is also traditional to serve it with mustard on top, but I just mixed the mustard through the whole soup when I made it.

It is quite a simple soup, which is nice and easy to make. The main flavours come from the thyme and the mustard, so I recommend being quite heavy handed with these ingredients otherwise it will just taste like a bowl of cooked peas - nice but a bit bland. I used lemon thyme for a nice different taste, but you can use regular thyme instead.

Ingredients
400g yellow split peas, soaked overnight in cold water and then drained and rinsed well
7 cups cold water
1 onion, finely diced
1 carrot, diced
1 stick celery, diced
2 tbsp stock powder (bouillon)
2 tbsp fresh lemon thyme, slightly chopped/crushed
2 generous tbsp wholegrain mustard (vary this depending on the heat of your mustard - if using hot mustard use less, if using very mild mustard then use more)
1/2 tsp salt

To Make
1. Place the rinsed and soaked yellow peas in a large soup pot and cover with the water. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a gentle simmer. Skim any foam off the top, although don't be worried if you can't get it all.
2. Add the onion, carrot, celery and stock powder and simmer, covered for about 20 minutes.
3. Add the thyme and continue to simmer for a further 10-20 minutes - or until the peas are completely cooked and the soup has started to thicken.
4. Stir though the mustard and the salt and then remove from the heat. It is now ready to serve, however if you let it stand for another 20-30 minutes then it will become thicker and creamier, so up to you!

Serve with pancakes and whipped cream!

Serves 4

This month I'm featuring lots of amazing recipes from Sweden!

Check out my other Swedish recipe posts:

Vegan Smörgåstårta (Swedish Sandwich Cake)

Chokladdarraksbolls (Chocolate & Aniseed Balls)

Vegan Swedish Meatballs

Almond and Cranberry Semla

Jansson's Temptation (Creamy Potato Bake)

No-Knead Cardamom Braid 

Kladdkaka (Gooey Chocolate Cake!)

Garlicy Field Mushrooms with Rödkål 

Easy Mushy Peas

Mushy peas are a great and easy side dish. They have such a warming and homely feel to them. They take a bit of forward planning, you have to soak the peas over night. But once you have done that you can just put them on to boil and go off and do something else. I recommend using a non stick saucepan so that you don't have to worry about them sticking at all to the bottom of the pan.

In this picture I've served them with my Swede and Parsnip Mini Cottage Pies - and they complimented each other perfectly!

Ingredients
500g Dried whole peas (not split peas)
4 tsp bicarb soda
Water
Salt to taste
Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)

To Make
1. Soak the peas in plenty of water with the bicarb over night.
2. Drain the peas and rinse well.
3. Place in a medium non stick saucepan and add enough water to just cover the peas.
4. Bring to the boil, cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer, covered for 1 to 1 and a half hours, or until mushy. Stir occasionally and adjust the water level if it starts to stick (I didn't need to add any more water to mine).
5. Once cooked, add salt and lemon juice to taste. Don't add the salt until after the peas are cooked, or they will make the peas tough.

Serves 6-8 as a side veggie, keeps well in the fridge.

I'm featuring lots of recipes from the United Kingdom,

Check out my other recipe posts here:

Vegan Cauliflower Cheese

Summer Pudding

Mushroom & Guinness Pie

Treacle Tart

Vegan Bakewell Tart

Roasted Love Apple and Wine Soup

Cranachan (Whiskey Cream with Raspberries and Oats)

Orange and Lemon Vegetables

Scottish Vegan Oat Scones

Swede & Parsnip Mini Cottage Pies

Split Pea and Basil Stew

Sometimes I find the best recipes are created when you have something that you need to use up. My vegie garden is growing so beautifully right now and I am a tiny bit super proud of it. It's sort of like my child (except less high maintenance), every time somebody comes over to my house I invariable drag them outside to proudly show them my vegie garden and point out all the changes since last time I dragged them out to see it. My friends are probably sick of this but they will probably have to get over it. I imagine it is similar to if  they went over to somebody's house who had just had a baby - out come the baby photos (despite the fact that the baby is right there for you to look at) so that they can tell you all the tiny ways that the baby has changed over the last month which are all things that probably only they care about. Well, I'm like that with my vegie garden. It's like my child essentially. This is my other child, by the way, and I can tell you that she is definitely much cuter than my vegie-garden-child:

Uli Von Tuftsberg

However, what happens with a vegie garden (as I'm sure any vegie growers know) is that suddenly you get an influx of something which needs to be used up all at once before the plant goes to seed. So, this week the basil in my garden was rather thriving and I knew I needed to use up a fair bit of it to stop the plants going to seed. I was making lunch and what I really felt like was split pea soup/stew. So - the result was obviously Split Pea and Basil Stew! This is probably something I never would have tried if I hadn't had to use up the basil, which would have been a great loss because it was absolutely delicious (seconded by the two guests I had over for lunch that day). So the moral of the story is. Something.

Just to prove what a proud parent I am here is a picture of my basil (isn't it adorable??):

Split Pea and Basil Stew

Ingredients:

1 tbsp nuttelex (or other vegan margarine)

1 leek, washed and thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp caraway seeds

1.5L vegetable stock

1 1/2 cups green split peas

1 potato, peeled and diced

1 carrot, chopped

1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced

5 tomatoes, finely chopped

2 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 cup fresh or frozen green peas

Cracked pepper to taste

1 bunch fresh basil

To Make:

1. Melt nuttelex in a large soup pot. Add the leek and garlic and sauté until softened. Add fennel seeds and caraway seeds and sauté for a further 5 minutes.

2. Add the split peas, stock, potato, carrot, sweet potato, tomatoes, soy sauce and cumin and bring to the boil.

3. Reduce to a simmer and and cover. Simmer for 30-40 minutes or until the peas have gone nice and mushy.

4. Grind the basil to a paste in a mortar and pestle (leaving a small handful out to chop and use as garnish) or alternately use a food processor.

5. Add the basil paste and peas to the stew and simmer, uncovered for 5-10 minutes. Season to taste with cracked pepper.

6. Serve topped with shredded fresh basil.

Serves 4.

Spicy Rice with Pumpkin, Broccoli and Fresh Peas

The chilli in this might not be to the taste of everyone but if you like things milder just add less or no chilli and you'll find it is still very delicious.

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced finely

2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed

1.5 litres vegetable stock

250g pumpkin, cut into small cubes

3 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

1 1/2 tsp ground Peri Peri (or if you don't have Peri Peri substitute Cayenne Pepper or chilli powder)

1 thing (someone tell me what the measure word for broccoli is??) broccoli, cut into florets

2 cups basmati rice, uncooked

1 tin diced tomatoes

1 cup fresh peas

1 tbsp soy sauce

To Make:

1. Heat a drizzle of oil or 2-3 tbsp water in a wok or large non-stick saucepan (I say nonstick because rice is VERY prone to stick to the bottom and if you don't use nonstick I predict you will be going at your saucepan with some serious steel wool at the end of this cooking process). Add the onion and garlic and sauté til transparent. 

2. Add 2 cups of the vegie stock and the pumpkin and simmer until the pumpkin is soft, about 15 minutes (you may need to cover it). 

3. Then add the rest of the stock, the spices, the tinned tomatoes, the broccoli and the rice. Stir well and bring to a simmer.

4. Simmer, mixing VERY often until the rice has absorbed all the liquid, probably about 15 mins again. At this point test the rice to see if it is cooked. If not, add a couple of more cups of water and simmer again until all the liquid is absorbed. Keep doing this until the rice is cooked.

5. About 5 minutes before the rice is finished cooking add the fresh peas.

6. Once you have got the rice cooked to the right consistency turn off the heat a stir through the soy sauce. Serve immediately (if you leave it for a while you'll end up with a large rice cake stuck in your saucepan, however, if you do this then just add another half a cup of hot stock just before serving and mix well to loosen it up a bit.).

Serves 4 easily.

Four Types of Lentils (with Broad Beans)

Lentils are awesome! :)

Ingredients:

1 bunch shallots/spring onions (either are fine)

½ tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp cumin

8 cups vegetable stock

½ cup blue lentils (or ‘French Lentils’)

½ cup green lentils

½ cup yellow split peas

¼ cup red lentils

2 carrots, diced

½ cup broad beans (frozen if fresh not available)

1 zucchini, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

To Make:

1. Heat some oil in a heavy based saucepan or soup pot. Slice the white parts of the shallots and put the green parts aside to use as garnish (or to put in a salad for some other meal). Sauté the white parts of the shallots in the oil with the fennel seeds until the shallots are soft and the fennel seeds are fragrant. Add the cumin and sauté a further minute.

2. Add the vegetable stock, and all 4 types of lentils. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Add the diced carrots and broad beans and simmer for a further 20 minutes, or until the lentils are nice and soft. Check the water level to make sure there is enough water and add more (boiling hot) water if the water has reduced too much.

4. Add the zucchini and season to taste with salt and pepper. Once zucchini is cooked serve.

Serves 4.