Nigella Lawson Yellow Split Pea And Frankfurter Soup Recipes

Steps:

• Peel the onion, carrot and garlic and cut the onion and carrot into rough chunks. Put them all, along with the roughly cut up stick of celery into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz till all are finely chopped.
• Spoon the oil into a heavy-based wide saucepan and put on medium heat. When warm, add the chopped vegetables from the processor and cook for 5-10 minutes, until soft but not colored.
• Add the ground mace-give a good stir and then add the split peas and stir again until their are glossily mixed with the oil-slicked, cooked-down vegetables. Pour over 5 cups stock and add the bay leaves, then bring to a boil. Cover, turn down the heat and cook for about an hour until everything is tender and sludgy, adding more stock as needed. Sometimes the peas seem to thicken too much before they actually cook and need to be watered down. Taste for seasoning once everything's ready.
• You can add the frankfurters as you wish. It's probably easiest just to cut them into slices - I tend to add them in chunks of about and inch each - and throw them into the soup warm, but I just put them in the microwave (40 seconds on high is about right for one or two franks) then slice them hot and add them to each person's bowl as they come. Not an elegant soup, I'll admit, but a near-perfect one.

Steps:

• In a food processor, combine onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Process until finely chopped.
• Place a heavy, wide saucepan over medium heat, and add oil. When hot, add chopped vegetables, and sauté until soft but not colored, 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in mace. Add split peas, and stir to mix well.
• Add 4 cups stock and the bay leaves, and bring to a boil. Cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer until peas are very soft, about 1 hour. Stir soup with a wooden spoon. If desired, adjust thickness of soup with additional stock.
• Add frankfurter pieces to soup, and simmer until well heated. Ladle into bowls and serve. (Alternatively, soup may be ladled into bowls and frankfurter pieces heated in a microwave oven, and added to each bowl as desired.)

Steps:

• Combine water, salt, peas, lime juice and scallions in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook until peas are tender, 3-5 minutes. Remove scallions and discard.
• Transfer soup to a blender. Add pesto and process until smooth. Serve hot.