EMPTY THAT FREEZER: Green pea soup

Yes, the great spring/winter cleanout continues. As I probe the depths of our freezer, I either remember what something is, and keep it, OR, if my reaction is 'what the hell is that' or, 'oh yeah, I put that in there in 2006' (it DID happen), then out it goes. Cleaning a freezer, for a cook, can be as therapeutic as a good closet cleaning can be for anyone. You DO have to be in the right mood, and you WILL find your will softening at some things. For example, I KNOW I'm never going to crack those apricot pits and make noyau custard or ice cream, but there they stay. On the other hand, the pork chop that had picked up more than double its weight in ice, that went. And so it goes .

Ok, so where is this rant going? Glad you asked. One of the vegetables that freezes best, is green peas. And they happen to be one of Guy's favorite veggies. So, during the late spring/early summer, we have them a lot, and freeze more. This year, I guess I froze way more than I thought. As I was digging stuff out, I found bag after bag after bag of them. Maybe as many as we had fava beans. So my thoughts turned to that wonderful way to use up vegetables, soup. Let's face it, this is the time of year where soup is always welcome. ANY soup. But wouldn't you like something that is a little springlike, to remind you that, really, it IS just around the corner? And there's where the peas come in .

You can find TONS of recipes for split pea soup, or soup using dried peas. There isn't so much "literature" on fresh green peas in soup. I recall that there is a French term for such soups, named after a city, but I do not recall it. I DO remember making it and thinking it wasn't so good. The one I made today, however, was really good. And I want you to make it. Either in the version that I found, or my version, which I liked better.

To make this, you will need six cups of frozen green peas. If you don't have them in your freezer from the farmers market heyday, then buy some. But PLEASE read the package. You'd be stunned at what goes into frozen vegetables. Get the organic ones, if you must. And since you need six cups, read the portion size on the side. It will tell you how many servings there are, and how big the serving is. Do the math, to make sure you have enough. You will also need half of a stick of unsalted butter, two onions, a quart of chicken stock and a cup of water (or, five cups of stock if you don't mind having an opened container around). In the original version, you will need a cup and a half of buttermilk too. In my version, you will need a pound of shelled shrimp. (I'm giving two versions because I'm thinking of a friend who doesn't eat shellfish - hi Ben, and a friend who will eat shellfish but won't use chicken stock - hi Jeremy. J, you can use all water in this if you want, or a simple vegetable stock. In the summer, I'll teach you how to make pea stock, how's that?).

Okay, you dice the two onions and you cook them in the half stick of butter (for some reason, peas seem to work better with butter than olive oil. So even though you're pushing up the cholesterol, go for it. You're going to have a lot of soup when this is done), and when they soften, add the peas, all at once, and the stock. Bring this to the boil, and then simmer, and cook it for about seven minutes. Just until the peas soften.

If you're smart, you now wait until this cools down. If you're foolhardy, like me, you don't. You get a blender, or a food mill, or whatever your preferred method of pureeing things might be, and in no more than three cup units, start pureeing. I did each one for thirty seconds. Then, you have to make a choice. At this point, you have a very textured soup. You can strain this through a colander and pull out the larger pieces and get something very refined. I don't think that is a good idea, because you wind up throwing away flavor. So I don't strain.

You are going to have about two quarts worth of soup here, and you're not done. Uh uh. If you've cooled the soup, warm it up again. Just to the point where it begins to bubble. When that's done, either add the buttermilk, off the heat (buttermilk WILL break, unlike cream, so you can' t heat it too hard), or with the heat low, add your shrimp. Just cook them through. The heat will continue to cook the shrimp.

If you use the buttermilk , you will get a beautiful pale, green colored product that reminds me of a lunar moth's wings. If you use the shrimp, the green color is, of course darker, but you get those pink color dots throughout the soup. Pink and green always remind me of spring, as does that pale green color that you associate with new leaves. So, if you are of a poetic bent, you can pour yourself out a bowl of this and think about how much fun you had last spring, or how much fun you'll have this spring.

Whatever you do, promise Annalena your thoughts will not turn to 'OH HELL SPRING IS AROUND THE CORNER AND I'M TOO FAT." What the hell is the point of that? Annalena likes her men with meat on their bones anyway, and 'fess up, so do you....

Incidentally, if you counted the time to do this soup, you may have noticed it took less than half an hour. Plenty of time to get to the gym if you insist.