Pea soup was known already in ancient times, and in Europe it took root only in the 17th century thanks to German cooks. Now there are several hundred recipes for preparing this tasty, nutritious and healthy dish, which in each country has acquired its own national characteristics. The Germans add smoked meats and sausage to pea soup, the Italians add Parmesan and dry wine, the Mongolians prepare this dish with tomato juice, and the Indians cook dal - pea soup in coconut milk with spices fried in oil. Peas, containing vegetable protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements, are indispensable in the home diet, especially if there are children in the family. Thick, aromatic pea soup, meat or lean, is perfect for lunch, so let’s talk about how to properly prepare this dish so that you can say “finger-licking good” about it.
How should you prepare pea soup?
For cooking, dry peas are usually used: split or whole peas. It should be prepared: carefully sort it, wash it, and leave it soaked for a while. Ideal for the whole night.
It is recommended to change the water several times during the soaking process. The next morning, the peas are ready. For 5 liters of water, one and a half to two glasses of peas are required. For faster cooking, add boiling water. Cook without adding salt. Another secret to speed up cooking is to add a spoonful of butter or vegetable oil.
With soaking
So, soaking significantly speeds up the process of cooking peas. Pre-dried peas are washed in cold water, sorted out if there is debris in them and filled with cold water. Precisely cold, because hot peas will sour.
Whole peas are usually soaked in water for 5-8 hours. Usually this time is enough for the peas to swell and double in size. In addition, there are recommendations to periodically change the water during the soaking process, in order, again, to prevent the peas from turning sour. Sour peas are not a pleasant sight: they foam and smell terrible. For this reason, you should not soak peas for longer than the specified time.
It is enough to soak split peas (in halves) for 20-40 minutes. Or you can do without it altogether, according to one of the instructions on the package of split peas:
The manufacturer indicated that split peas can be cooked without soaking for 30-40 minutes after boiling. This means that with soaking, the split peas in the soup will become soft within 20-30 minutes.
Whole peas (soaked) will be ready only after 40 - 50 minutes. It is convenient to add it to soup along with chicken. We boil water for the soup and throw in soaked whole peas and raw chicken meat at the same time. Then, somewhere in the middle of cooking, add potatoes and fry. It is also recommended to salt pea soup at the final stage. They say that pea soup with chicken cooks faster than with beef or pork.
Again, it's worth mentioning that the cooking time for peas in soup may vary, depending on the year of production (and therefore hardness) of the peas.
Express method of soaking and boiling peas - with baking soda:
- 500 ml of split peas and 500 ml of cold water are poured into a bowl, 1 - 0.5 teaspoons of soda are added and stirred. You only need to soak for 1 hour. Next, rinse the peas well and cook for 15-25 minutes. After 25 minutes, the peas are completely boiled, turning into mush. Therefore, you need to be careful here so as not to overcook it.
This method of cooking soup is good if you forgot to soak the peas in advance.
Method for preparing legume soup with smoked meats
Ingredients:
- 300 g peas;
- 1 kg ribs (smoked);
- 3 potatoes;
- 1 carrot, onion;
- 30 gr. vegetable oil;
- pepper, salt, herbs;
- water - three liters.
Boil water, chop smoked meats. Wash the beans. Boil for an hour and a half with the ribs. Peel the potatoes, cut into medium-sized cubes. Remove the smoked meats from the container and add the potatoes for 15-30 minutes. Separate the meat on the ribs from the bones. Lightly fry onions and carrots using oil. You can just go on the water. Three to four minutes is enough. Throw everything into the soup, add salt. Cook for 15 minutes. over medium heat. Add greens at the end. Leave on the stove to infuse.
Cheese soup with green peas and pork ribs
This delicate soup with a creamy taste is prepared not from dry peas, but from green peas. The meat component of the recipe is pork ribs, but this is optional. It turns out very tasty with chicken broth.
Required Products:
- pork ribs - 0.5 kg.
- potatoes - 200 gr.
- processed cheese - 200 gr.
- frozen peas (fresh) - 100 gr.
- rice - 2 tbsp. l.
- carrots - 1 pc.
- onion - 1 pc.
- dill (parsley) - 1 bunch
- vegetable oil for frying
- salt - 1/2 tbsp. l.
- ground black pepper to taste
- bay leaf - 1 pc.
Step by step recipe:
- Wash the pork ribs and place them in a saucepan. Add water to just cover the ribs. Place on the stove and let it boil. Drain the water, rinse the meat and pan to remove any coagulated protein. Place the ribs back into the pan and add the required amount of water. Cook over low heat for about 40 minutes.
- Remove the cooked ribs from the broth. Let it cool slightly, separate from the bones, and cut the meat into small pieces.
- Add diced potatoes to the boiling broth, as well as rice washed in cold water. Stirring so that the rice does not settle to the bottom, bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.
- Fry grated carrots and chopped onions in vegetable oil until soft.
- When the potatoes and rice are almost ready, add pieces of meat and green peas. When it boils, add the processed cheese cut into cubes. Stirring occasionally to ensure the cheese is well dissolved, cook the soup for 5 minutes.
Processed cheese must be of high quality. Cheese with vegetable additives may not dissolve in the soup.
- Add roasted vegetables, cook for 5 minutes. At the end, add chopped greens.
How to cook meat pea soup?
This is a very nutritious dish.
Ingredients required:
- 3 l. water;
- 2 tbsp. peas (crushed);
- kilogram of beef;
- 2 pcs. carrots, onions;
- pepper;
- 1 tbsp. l. salt.
Since split peas are used, you don't have to soak them for a long time. An hour is enough. After soaking, place in a pan with fresh water. After boiling, cook over low heat, covered, for 60 minutes. Chop the washed onions and carrots as you wish. Add, without frying, to the peas. Salt and pepper to taste. The finished dish is served with croutons.
Vegetables, spices and other additives in pea soup
While the soup is cooking, cut the vegetables: potatoes into large cubes, carrots, celery or parsley root into small cubes, onions into strips or half rings. Vegetables are dipped into the broth with meat and peas, but you can add only potatoes to the soup, and fry the remaining vegetables, adding chopped sausage, ham or frankfurters if desired. If the soup turns out to be liquid, a sauté is made from butter and flour, and for a delicate taste, milk and cream, often whipped with yolk, are added to the soup. For piquancy, spices are added (cumin, fennel, turmeric, coriander, pepper, garlic), which eliminate the characteristic pea taste and make peas easier to digest. A few minutes before the end of cooking, add finely chopped dill and parsley into the pan and let the dish brew so that the vegetables are saturated with the aroma of meat and seasonings.
Pea soup is served with white bread crumbs, fresh herbs, mustard, sour cream and cream. This delicious dish is good to cook in winter, when you want to warm up and eat something especially hearty and nutritious. The recipes for proper pea soup published on our website will help you with this. You can show your imagination and prepare pea soup with champignons, homemade noodles, dumplings, seafood, apple, cherry plum and pomegranate seeds. Cooking pea soup is not very difficult, and the result will please the whole family and lift your spirits, because tasty food is a good antidepressant.
Vegan pea soup
A meatless legume dish is a great option for vegans.
Ingredients:
- 150 grams of yellow peas;
- 60 g carrots;
- a couple of medium-sized potatoes;
- one and a half liters of water;
- vegetable oil;
- spices, salt.
Prepare all foods in advance. Peel the potatoes by filling them with water. To avoid soaking the peas, you can pour boiling water over them. This will break down the shell of the peas and allow them to cook properly. The peas should swell. Add 0.7 liters of water and continue the cooking process until it begins to fall apart. At this time, chop the carrots and onions and place in a saucepan. Be sure to stir so that the peas do not burn. After salting, cook for an additional quarter of an hour. Prepare vegetable oil and spices. Mix warm oil with spices. Spices are added at the end of cooking. Vegan soup is ready.
Cooking rules
Ideally, the dish should be thick with boiled peas . To do this, be sure to soak it in cool water for at least 3-4 hours so that it swells . Cooks recommend lightly frying the beans before adding them to the water - this will release the aroma and allow the peas well in the soup . The proportions of water and peas can be different, depending on what consistency you want to achieve.
There are some ways to prepare the first course in which the legumes are not covered in liquid in advance. How to cook pea soup without soaking peas? You can just rinse it well and then put it to boil. In this case, the cooking time doubles, which means fewer useful elements remain. The best way is to pour water over the peas and leave for a couple of hours.
Which peas are best for pea soup ? When choosing, you need to pay attention to the “dust” in the product packaging (in fact, it is starch). Thanks to this, the dish turns out thick and has the right consistency.
Most often it is cooked in meat broth made from pork or smoked ribs. Various smoked meats can also be added towards the end of cooking, if there are only a few of them. A rich broth with a pleasant taste is obtained by frying vegetables in butter or olive oil. Pea soup with will be complemented by croutons made from white bread, finely chopped green onions or dill.
How to make bean soup in a slow cooker?
Using a multicooker makes cooking easier than ever.
Ingredients:
- a quarter kilogram of crushed peas;
- 70 grams of brisket (smoked);
- a couple of potatoes;
- medium sized carrots;
- leek;
- Bay leaf;
- 10 grams of sea salt;
- dried peas, chopped - 250 g;
- a mixture of Provencal herbs.
Cut the brisket into cubes. Chop the onion. Place the peas in the slow cooker. Immediately add vegetables and bay leaf. Then add the breast. Spices come last. Fill the contents with water. The volume depends on the desired thickness of the dish. Close the lid and activate the desired mode. Cooking time – 1.5 hours.
Cook peas in a slow cooker or pressure cooker
You can cook peas for soup using modern electrical appliances, for example, in a slow cooker. Or use a good old pressure cooker. In both cases, be sure to wash and sort the peas, removing defective peas and pebbles that may be accidentally caught.
Pressure cooker. With this method, you still have to soak the peas, but for a shorter time, about 2 hours.
Then pour water over the peas, close the lid, and place on the stove. Bring to a boil, after 20 minutes remove from heat. Do not open immediately, but let stand under pressure for about 10 minutes.
Multicooker. We prepare the peas as for a pressure cooker. The proportions with water are 1 to 2 (water). You must select the “stew” or “porridge” mode. Time for dry peas - 2 hours, soaked - 30-40 minutes.
Add salt and vegetable oil at the very end of cooking, 10 minutes before the peas are ready.
If you decide to immediately cook pea soup in a slow cooker, soak the peas in hot water for one hour. All soup ingredients are prepared and cut: potatoes, onions, carrots, smoked ribs or smoked meat products.
The products are placed in the multicooker bowl and water is added. Cooks in “soup” mode for about one hour. For this option, take 300 grams of ribs, 100 grams of peas, carrots, onions and other ingredients specified in the corresponding recipes.
