Recipe: Iced Cream of Garden Peas

1 Heat up the olive oil in a pot. Add 600g (21 oz) of peas and sweat them off, covered, for 6 minutes. Then, add the chicken stock and the cream season with a little salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

2 Meanwhile, pan fry the smoked duck cut in small dices until crispy. Set them aside on some kitchen paper.

3 Blitz your cream of peas for a couple of minutes, pass it through a medium sieve and allow to cool down fully before putting your soup into the fridge.

4 Blanch the rest of the peas. Put them in a pot of boiling water for 15 seconds. Then, put them straight away in a bowl of iced cold water. Finally, strain them when they are cold.

5 Just before serving your soup, blitz your iced cold cream of peas for a minute or so and share it in 6 nice bowl soup. Then, add some of the blanched peas and the crispy duck dices in each bowls. Finally, finely chop the mint leaves and sprinkle a little bit of it in each bowls.

This recipe offers a nice mixture of texture and taste. The velvety texture of the cream of pea soup, the crispy smoked duck and the crunch of the whole peas give this soup a strong personality. The blend of smoky flavour from the duck, the sweetness of the peas and the light minty after taste gives this soup a real taste of the spring.