Cheat’s Dutch Style Pea Soup

Sometimes in a cold night here downunder, I cannot help craving for Dutch Pea Soup (Erwten Soep). It’s something that I would not eat unless I did not have any other choice when I was living in Holland. Supermarkets in this small town used to carry canned version from Albert Hein’s but I cannot find any recently. The real version uses split peas – but my version is a quick lazy one, so I use canned green peas and Australian one at that because it’s not too sweet. Don’t go near frozen ones - way, way too sweet.

2 cans of green peas (about 400 grams each), drained

700 mil of chicken stock

½ onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 potatoes, diced

2 rashers of bacon, chopped

3 sticks of frankfurters cut into 1 cm pieces

Salt & pepper

A little bit of oil for frying

In a casserole, fry bacon until lightly brown, add onion and garlic and fry until soft. Add peas and potatoes, stir and let them warm through then add chicken stock. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for twenty minutes – half an hour. Remove from heat and let the content cool down a bit before put it through blender. Don’t blitz it to finely, let the bits and piece here and there for texture.

Return soup to the casserole, add frankfurter pieces and let it simmer for another twenty minutes or so. Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm with garlic bread.

NB: Apologies for posting in wrong order - wok post takes precedence this week.