Recipe - June Soup

STOCK
1 Lemon
1 Chicken; a 1.35 kg
1 Onion; peeled
1 Carrot; peeled
6 Black peppercorns
1 teaspoon Sea salt
1 Three fourths l Water

SOUP
350 g Green or yellow split peas
3 Onions
6 small New turnips
3 Carrots
3 Heads fennel
4 tablespoon Olive oil
6 Cloves garlic; peeled
Sea salt
400 g Tomatoes; tin
1 tablespoon Fresh thyme; or marjoram
1 One half l Chicken stock
1 Handful of sorrel or several
large spinach leaves

(Units: 100 g = 3 One half oz; 1 dl = 3 One half fl ounce = 2/5 cup; 180 oC = 350 oF;
200 oC = 400 oF; 230 oC = 450 oF; 250 oC = 475 oF; 2.5 cm = 1 inch)

The Story, Birgid Allen:

"(...) This is really a late spring soup, for that time when nothing yet
seems to be properly in season and when cold winds blight the beginning of
summer and give one unseasonable longings for warm, comforting soups.

This is the time to forget asparagus and turn back to root vegetables, such
as the new, sharptasting young turnips in their delicately purpleflushed
white skins. These go well with the winter and spring perennial, the
bulbous Florentine fennel with its faintly aniseedlike taste.

The rich, lemony stock, the sharp sorrel and garlicky tomato provide a good
background for the pungency of the young turnips and fennel. It is worth
boiling a chicken with a cut lemon inside it to produce the right rich,
strong broth to pull this soup together, remembering that it is easily a
meal in itself. (...)"

The Recipe

The day before making this soup, place a cutup lemon inside your chicken
and boil for just over 1 hour (for a 1.35 kg/3 pounder), adding a peeled
onion and carrot, black peppercorns and sea salt to the water. Strain off
the broth and refrigerate it overnight.

Soak the split peas either overnight or for several hours, then boil them
in plenty of unsalted water for 30 minutes to 1 hour until they are soft.
The first 10 minutes of boiling should always be fast and uncovered; the
rest may be a steady simmer with the lid on.

Meanwhile, peel the onions and turnips, and scrape the carrots and fennel;
chop them all into small dice and soften them for 15 minutes in olive oil
in a heavy, covered pan.

Crush the garlic in a mortar with a little sea salt and add it to the
vegetables with the tomatoes and the thyme or marjoram, raising the heat a
little and cooking uncovered for 520 minutes while breaking up the
tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

Then add the drained split peas, the skimmed stock and the washed and
tornup sorrel leaves. (Spinach will do, but it will not contribute such an
interestingly acidic flavour.)

Bring to the boil, simmer for 30 minutes, cool and serve. Add more salt ift
he split peas seem to demand it, but do not liquidize the soup unless you
want their taste to be dominant.

From: Birgid Allen, The Soup Book, M Papermac, 1993, ISBN 0333582241,
p.133

Typed for you by Rene Gagnaux @ 2:301/212.19