Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

---------------------------STOCK--------------------------------
1 Lemon
1 Chicken; a 1.35 kg
1 Onion; peeled
1 Carrot; peeled
6 Black peppercorns
1 ts Sea salt
1 3/4 l Water

----------------------------SOUP---------------------------------
350 g Green or yellow split peas
3 Onions
6 sm New turnips
3 Carrots
3 Heads fennel
4 tb Olive oil
6 Cloves garlic; peeled
Sea salt
400 g Tomatoes; tin
1 tb Fresh thyme; or marjoram
1 1/2 l Chicken stock
1 Handful of sorrel or several
-- large spinach leaves

(Units: 100 g = 3 1/2 oz; 1 dl = 3 1/2 fl oz = 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, sharp-tasting young turnips in their
delicately purple-flushed white skins. These go well with the winter
and spring perennial, the bulbous Florentine fennel with its faintly
aniseed-like 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 cut-up 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 5-20 minutes while breaking
up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

Then add the drained split peas, the skimmed stock and the washed and
torn-up 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
0-333-58224-1, p.133

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

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