Kapucijners Pea Soup
I made this soup from Dutch Kapucijners pea, it is also known as blauwschokkers or purple podded peas. This purple podded pea was very new for me in The Netherlands, I have never seen this in Hungary before, and even here in the Netherlands it’s not possible to buy everywhere. When I saw it at the farmer’s market, I knew I had to try. The sales lady told me she likes it much better than the green podded garden peas when I asked her to tell something about it. Kapucijners pea was very popular in the 17th century, in Dutch Golden age, because of a practical reason, in dried form it was perfect for long ship travels, in the wars and in trading trips.
Garden peas and sugar peas are very common in European cuisines, but this one is a type of field pea. When I made a search on the net, I was really surprised when I read field pea is one of the oldest domesticated crops, cultivated for at least 7,000 years and it is a cool-season legume crop that is grown on over 25 million acres worldwide. (It’s not part of paleo diet, because it’s a legume.)
I thought I would make a soup from it with chicken stock, carrots and almond flour dumpling. When I pulled Kapucijners from the pod, it could easily be mistaken for garden peas, its color is the same green but the cooked Kapucijners’ taste and texture were very similar to beans, and not like the green garden pea most of us know.
It’s really nice to cook it in chicken stock, you could use chicken stock cubes if you do not have homemade but make sure they are gluten free and don’t contain any unnecessary ingredients, like flour, flavor enhancer or sugar.
During the cooking process the peas changed their color from green to brown and the soup’s color became a bit greyish-brown too. The result was very delicious.
When you buy Kapucijner peas, you have to calculate half of its weight is the pod. I bought 1 kg and after pulling from the pods I just had 453 grams peas left.
Kapucijners Pea Soup
Ingredients
- 1 kg Kapucijner Purple Podded Peas, in pods
- 450 gram chicken breast filet
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4 carrot medium size, finely sliced
- 1.2 liter chicken stock
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper freshly ground
- ¼ tsp nutmeg freshly ground
- 1 tbsp parsley finely cut
Dumpling
- 1 large egg
- 3 tbsp almond flour
- 1 tsp psyllium husk
- 1 tbsp parsley finely cut
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Pull Kapucijner from the pods. You will get about 450 gram from 1 kilogram podded Kapucijner.
- Cut chicken breast to cubes. Season it with salt and pepper.
- Heat oil in a soup pan over medium heat. Add diced chicken breast filet and sauté for 2-3 minutes, until it’s white outside.
- Add Kapucijner, carrots and sauté for 1 minute together with the chicken breast.
- Add chicken stock and decrease the heat to medium low after the first boiling and cook for 16-18 minutes, until Kapucijner are soft.
- While the soup is cooking, you can make the dumplings. Mix egg, almond flour, psyllium husk, 2 pinches salt and 1 tbsp finely cut parsley. Leave mixture to rest for 10 minutes. Psyllium and egg will hold the mixture on together.
- Add nutmeg and 1 tbsp finely cut parsley to the soup, season it with salt and pepper.
- Spoon dumpling mixture into the soup carefully and cook for 4-6 minutes. Do not boil and do not stir the soup now, because dumplings will fall apart.
- Decorate with finely cut parsley when serving.