Madhouse recipe : Minted Pea & Parma Ham Soup

As it was St Patrick's Day this week, green food has been all over twitter, facebook and pinterest. Well, you can't get any greener than this Minted Pea & Parma Ham Soup !

I made my own version of pea soup a while ago, adding leeks, onions and bacon to the mix, but as I'd treated myself to a couple of Gordon Ramsay cookbooks at Christmas, I decided to try out his recipe for Minted Pea Soup with Parma Ham from Fast Food. It certainly is - the whole thing took about 10 minutes to prepare so it's perfect when you've had a busy day at work.

Well, following the recipe to the letter, I found it a bit bland - sorry Gordon ! - so I added a couple of ham stock cubes which sorted it out.

 Minted Pea & Parma Ham Soup

ingredients :

2tbsp olive oil

4 slices Parma ham

sea salt & black pepper

large handful of mint

500g peas, fresh or frozen

200g crème fraîche

(optional : 2 Ham Stock Cubes)

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and gently fry the Parma ham, sprinkling it with freshly ground black pepper. I'd never fried Parma Ham before and I thought it came out just like bacon, so you could use that instead if you prefer. Drain on kitchen paper and chop into pieces.

 Add the mint to a pan of boiling water, bring back to the boil then throw in the peas and cook for 2-3 minutes until just tender and still bright green. I would have loved to use fresh mint but our mint plant is looking a bit sorry for itself so dried mint had to do instead. Frozen peas make this a real meal in moments using just store cupboard basics.

Drain off but reserve the water (I added a couple of ham stock cubes to it for ever flavour). Add just enough water to cover the peas and blitz with a stick blender. Add the crème fraîche (and Gordon suggests a drizzle of olive oil but I omitted this) and enough of the cooking water to get the texture you desire. Scatter with the crispy Parma ham and serve.