Creamy artichoke, fresh peas & mint soup
Artichoke soup with fresh peas and mint. So delicious and nutritious! This comforting, warming soup is so creamy, though no cream has been used in the process. I love artichokes when they are in season. They do take a bit of time preparing, but are very rewarding (for your body and soul 🙂 )
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
🥘 Main ingredients
- globe artichokes
- elongated artichokes
- fresh peas
- onion
- fresh mint
- vegetable stock
- lemon juice
- garlic
- olive oil
- chives
💭 Thoughts and tips
Peas and mint go hand in hand together, but with having the artichokes as your main vegetable you can easy substitute the mint for thyme and rosemary, which go very well with the artichokes. In this occasion I kept the mint.
I made the vegetable stock myself, as home made vegetable stock is so much superior in flavour than the cubes or powders. This particular one I made with adding a good bit of white wine to the stock, which works beautiful with the artichokes.
🥂 Wine pairing
Because of a natural chemical in artichokes, called cynarin, artichokes can be difficult to pair. If cynarin detects sweetness in a wine, it will enhance it, by which it becomes too sweet, and flabby. So best to go for a bone dry white, with green apple and citrus flavours. Like a Basque Txakoli, or a dry sauvignon Blanc. Or sometimes I find it quiet pleasant to have a sherry with a soup, in this case a dry fino.
This artichoke soup is a dish with which you can easy play with different flavours. It is great fun to try, create, and play in the kitchen. Let me know if you came up with some interesting combi’s. And send me some pictures on Instagram by adding @haricoco1 to your posts. Thanks! and ENJOY
📋 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 large globe artichokes
- 6 small elongated artichokes
- 250 grams (1⅔ cups) fresh peas
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 1 bunch of fresh mint
- 500 ml (2 cups + 2 Tbsp) vegetable stock
- 4 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 garlic clove whole
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- chives chopped
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Separate the heart from the globe artichokes by snapping the leaves off. Once you get to the softer leaves cut the spear top off. Now you should be able to carefully scoop the choke out with a spoon.
- Break the fibrous part of the stem off, and with a sharp knife start cutting carefully around the heart, until all green hard parts have been cut off.
- Take 4 of the smaller artichokes and separate the hearts.
- The other 2 artichokes we just cut in half, take only the tough outer leaves off, and the hard part of the stem. Scoop carefully the choke out, and keep them aside in a bowl of water with 2 tbsp lemon juice.
- In a pan Saute the chopped onion, and once translucent pour in the vegetable stock. Add the artichoke hearts and bring to a nice simmer.
- Check with a knife or skewer if the hearts are softened (approx.15-20 min.), Than add the fresh peas, and a pinch of salt. Simmer for another few minutes, and let the stock cool down a little.
- Meanwhile put the olive oil in a skillet and add the whole clove of garlic. on Medium heat fry for about 3 minutes (until garlic starts lightly browning).
- Remove the clove of garlic from the pan.
- Add the artichoke halfs (dry first with paper towel), and brown them on both sides, approx. 3-5 minutes per side.
- Add the lemon juice, and cover, leave on low heat.
- Check after 5 minutes if the artichokes are tender. If not, leave them a little longer.
- By now your soup should be cooled down enough to blend. Add the fresh mint, and blend in a foodprocessor until nice and smooth.
- Reheat the soup, and season with salt and pepper.
- Serve the soup with two half’s of the pan fried artichokes, a few mint leaves and chives.
