Pea, Mint and White Bean Soup

I love pea and mint soup, and white beans add not only protein but also a subtle, brothy flavour, so I thought combining them might work well. This is my recipe, which I formulated after reading about twelve different recipes for pea and mint soup until I had the general idea, and then forging ahead on my own.

Ingredients
2-3 cups of cooked white beans
3 cups frozen peas
Vegetable stock as needed
Chopped mint to taste - at least half a cup
1/2 a cup of greek yoghurt
Salt
Pepper

1. The white beans need to be boiled until tender. In the pot and water in which you cooked the white beans, add the frozen peas and enough stock to cover. It's important to conserve the white bean water because it has a lovely subtle flavour. Add a little mint now just to get it going. Bring to the boil and simmer until the peas are tender but not mushy.

2. Remove from heat and let cool for a while, so that you don't overheat your blender when you blend it. Puree with a hand blender until smooth, adding more stock if you want it to be thinner. Obviously this will work in a traditional blender too.

3. Return the soup to the stove, and add the yoghurt, salt and pepper and mint to taste. In my opinion this much soup needs at least half a cup of chopped mint. I probably put in more like a cup. Similarly the seasoning here is extremely important. Peas are a vegetable that make their objections known if you underseason them, and they will make these objections known on your palate. If you taste the soup and it tastes anything short of incredible, add more salt and pepper.

4. Now that the soup tastes incredible, bring it back to a simmer, and then serve it hot in winter or cold in summer.

I don't think this kind of soup should be eaten with bread, because it clouds what should otherwise be a really clean flavour. But that's just me, I'm sure the rest of you aren't so bizaare in your soup beliefs.

(This recipe is my entry for this month's Legume Love Affair. Check out the details here, at this month's host blog When My Soup Came Alive.)