Thursday in Sweden is the traditional time for pea soup and pancakes. Every Thursday. Obviously not everyone has pea soup on Thursdays but it has been a tradition since 1577. The story is that in 1577 King Erik XIV was imprisoned and on a Thursday was fed pea soup laced with poison. Every Thursday thereafter the Swedes had pea soup in his honor. An additional story is that it began before the reformation when Sweden was still Catholic and the country filled up on pea soup to prepare for meatless Friday. I don't know if I buy either explanation.
The soup is traditionally made with yellow peas and mustard. I have tried the yellow pea variety and in spite of my love for most all soups, yellow pea soup just didn't do it for me. Here is the better option, using dried green peas.
Klassick Ärtsoppa
• 2 cups (1 pound) split peas
• 4 cups water
• 8 cups ham broth with meat
• 2 large white onions, diced
• 4 cloves chopped garlic
• 4 carrots, diced
• 6 strips of bacon, cut into small pieces
• 2 T oil or bacon grease
• 1 tsp margoram
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp blackpepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
DIRECTIONS
1. Pour 4 cups boiling water over the peas and allow to soak for an hour
2. In a large stockpot brown bacon until crisp and with a slotted spoon remove to a paper lined place to drain. Discard all but 2 T of fat.
3. Saute onions until tender in the fat and then add garlic, carrots, marjoram, thyme and pepper and cook another 5 minutes
4. Drain and rinse the peas and add half of them to the stock pot
5. Add the ham broth and simmer (covered) for 15 minutes
6. With an immersion blender process until semi[smooth
7. Add the rest of the peas and simmer another 15-20 minutes (uncovered).
8. Add ham and bacon and heat through, seasoning with salt to taste.
Now, this, is a good Swedish pea soup. I got the recipe off this blog ↓
Charlotte Lund's culinary concerto
This gal is a bit more ambitious then I. She cooks down a ham broth by purchasing a ham in bone. Me? "Better than Bouillon" ham (or vegetable if you cannot find ham flavored) and adding leftover ham from a previous meal.
smaklig måltid,
FYI - I am really a soup lover and I have an additional blog with my favorite recipes. If you are interested here is a great recipe for German lentil soup compliments of my German mother in law↓
Linsensuppe - German Lentil Soup
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