Pea Soup, the Right Way

When I am writing this blog, I usually make use of Google to help me find links to the recipes. Every time I start typing Nigella into the search, I always laugh. Google has this feature called auto complete, and when you start typing something, Google has a drop list that includes some possible searches you are looking for. When you type in Nigella the first three auto completes are as follows:

1) Nigella Lawson

2) Nigella Lawson recipes

3) Nigella Lawson breasts

I could see how her recipes are the most searched thing about Nigella, but her breasts came in second? Not that I am saying they should have been first, I'm just saying it makes me laugh that that's an actual popular search amongst people. If I were Nigella I don't know if I would feel more offended or proud.

Back in October I unsuccessfully made Nigella Lawson's Split Pea Soup. The end result was more of a gruel than a soup. This is not Nigella's fault, this was my own. I didn't have enough chicken broth for the soup and the dried split peas absorbed more than I thought they would. The gruel was not aesthetically pleasing, and the texture was hard to stomach, but the taste itself was not bad.

After reading the post, my friend C had mentioned that she had loved that recipe, she even drew five stars beside the recipe in her cookbook, and that it was too bad that I didn't enjoy it.

Yesterday morning I opened an email from C which read "When you made Nigella's pea soup, did you not like the taste or was it something else? I was thinking of making it for supper tonight for when you come over, but if you hated the taste I could make something else"

I wrote back saying the soup itself tasted good, but it was my poor execution that was the problem so I would be more than happy to have the soup. Then I also said I would be taking pictures of it and posting about the soup made the right way.

The pictures were taken by me, but all the food was made by C.

The soup:

Nigella calls this "Yellow Split Pea Soup with Frankfurters". If you are opposed to the use of hot dogs in the soup, you could use chopped ham instead. I personally like the franks, the picture reminds me of sharks circling around their prey. The soup is also pretty healthy (franks aside), the ingredients are celery, carrot, onion, broth, split peas and some seasonings.

If the soup isn't filling enough on its own, you could serve it alongside some bread. One thing I love about C is that she has the patience to bake and there is never a shortage of baked goods in her house.

C made Nigella's Potato Bread, which was still warm when we ate it. Really, is there anything better than fresh, warm from the oven, homemade bread? I could have ate the whole loaf myself, I didn't, but I wanted to.

I noticed in the recipe Nigella didn't do this, but C brushed melted butter on top of it when she pulled the loaf out of the oven. It made the bread shiny, but also the crust tasted of butter, and who doesn't love that?