Peas porridge hot?
This year, I've grown a lot of different dry soup peas (dry peas). I'm looking for a simple recipe to help me evaluate their taste and texture. I'll be cooking these in small amounts of about 1/2 cup of dry peas, then my favourite will be my main soup pea crop for next year.
Any favourite recipes for peas porridge or soup from dry peas?
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5 Comments
That would be the purest expression of the peas/beans.
You can turn them into frijoles (refried beans) after your taste test or just eat as is (I do the latter).
I actually stopped making frijoles with onions and lard because I found those additions to be a bit distracting. I also found that I prefer certain beans over others. Ones that will frequently make it into my pantry are chickpeas, lentils (the French ones from Puy are nice), as well as my favorite, Peruano beans (a.k.a. Mayocoba).
Peruano beans as the name implies originated from Peru, but they are quite popular in certain parts of Mexico. I always keep a couple of pounds of these in my pantry.
I just cook in water and mash up some of them so there are whole beans in a puree; I like the texture difference and still get to see beans.
I know a lot of people are gung ho about bacon, ham, etc. in their bean soups, but I often find it distracting.
I rarely cook from recipes, so I have no recommendations there.
To tell the truth, I've never cooked whole dry peas before. Always, it's been a split pea (with commercial split peas) soup with a heavy ham broth. I don't get much of the pea taste that way. This year is the international year of the pulse, so I decided to dedicate a big portion of my garden to dry beans and peas... only... I didn't think of what I would do with them in the kitchen. Now the pea harvest is in, it's time to start cooking. The eventual goal is to find my favourite then grow peas, beans, favas, lentils and chickpeas every year for drying. They improve the soil as well as make a long-storing staple food - well worth the effort.
I would like to cook these whole. I want to get an experience of the flavour of each kind of pea, but I don't want it to be overwhelming. If that makes sense. I'm putting each pulse through its paces as it were. I'll do a batch of just boiled peas topped with butter, or olive oil, or bacon drippings, but I'm also looking for other recipes that have dry peas as a main ingredient.