Split Pea Soup with Brown Butter, Coconut Milk & Chives
It’s always immensely entertaining––and perhaps a tad unnerving––to have any firmly-held ideas of who you are and what you like turned upside-down. Take cooking: I think of myself as a bit of traditionalist. In restaurants, I’ll ooh and ahh over creative twists, but in my own kitchen I’m a straight-shooting classicist. I like banana bread without candied ginger and my cinnamon rolls sans raisins.
Since my very first kitchen, I wanted to master the basics. It seemed like a way to create comfort in my new grown-up life with familiar favorites: roast chicken, chocolate chip cookies, French onion soup. But once I felt confident and had a pocketful of tried-and-trues to turn to, I began to want to stray the course rather than stay it.
And then along came this split pea soup recipe, and I don’t think I’ll be making the classic split pea soup recipe for a long while.
Start with a base of onion, garlic and crushed red pepper cooked in butter. Puree the split peas and stir in velvety coconut milk. Brown butter and season with curry powder. Drizzle spiced butter over your soup and dust with chives. You can see how this would change your mind about a ham hock, can’t you? Have you ever stumbled across a new recipe that made you toss out your old tried-and-true favorite?
Split Pea Soup with Brown Butter, Coconut Milk & Chives
from Super Natural Every Day
serves 4 to 6
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
5 1/2 cups vegetable broth or water
1 1/2 cups green split peas or green lentils, picked over and rinsed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Indian curry powder
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 bunch fresh chives, minced
Combine the 2 tablespoons butter, onion, garlic and red pepper flakes in a large soup pot over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the onions soften, a couple minutes. Add the vegetable broth or water and lentils and simmer, covered, until the lentils are tender. This usually takes 20 to 30 minutes, but can take as long as 50 minutes.
In the meantime, warm the 3 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and let it brown. When it starts to smell nutty and fragrant, stir in the curry powder and sauté until the spices are fragrant, less than a minute.
When the lentils are finished cooking, remove from the heat, stir in the coconut milk and 1/4 teaspoon salt and puree with an immersion blender. You can leave the soup a bit chunky if you like, or puree until it is perfectly smooth. Stir in half the spiced butter, taste, and add more salt in needed. Serve drizzled with the remaining spice butter and sprinkled with chives.
Kristina Strain: I will follow Heidi anywhere, and this sounds like no exception! I’ve loved a tried-and-true (and VERY easy) vegetarian split pea soup recipe for a long while, but this sounds like the perfect departure from the everyday. Thank goodness my vegetarian husband loves curry!1 year ago
I LOVE the book, and have been cooking from it so much. I like all the kicked-up thoughtful additions and touches she adds to things. Like, just when you think a recipe is already great, she adds spiced brown butter. Yes.1 year ago
Samantha Angela @ Bikini Birthday: I’ve been trolling the blog world for Supernatural Every Day recipes. So far I’ve made the White Beans and Cabbage which was phenomenal.
I definitely want to try out this recipe!1 year ago
Oooh, yes, the white beans and cabbage recipe looks so rich and delicious. It would be a good fit for today in my part of the world where it’s cold and gray.1 year ago
Elizabeth: Looks delicious! It’s fifty degrees and cloudy here in New Mexico, too, giving me my first baking urge in a while yesterday (see your email!). This looks perfect, also, for our winterly week! xoxo1 year ago
Sara Rose: When I discovered Jamie Oliver’s ‘sorta bolognaise’ sauce for pasta, I was an immediate convert. Then when I read about preparing it simply with just butter, onions, garlic, anchovies, and red pepper flakes, I never went back to my age old way of preparing spaghetti sauce. Nolan also makes meatballs and meatloaf totally differently than I ever did and yet again I was immediately a changed cook.1 year ago
Megan: I’ve borrowed this book from a friend and loved it too! This soup sounds delicious. But those cinnamon rolls? Um. I think I’ll be leaving that post up for my husband to find for Mother’s Day inspiration.
Thanks.1 year ago
sweetsugarbean: I made a curried squash soup with coconut milk the other day, and really, there is nothing better than coconut milk in soup! This looks delicious – I must get Heidi’s book.1 year ago
wendy: Not a split-pea type of person, but this just might change my mind. Love browned butter to cook my eggs in!
I have found a new way to make choclate chip cookies! Melting the butter and sugars together first, then adding the eggs after the mix is cooled a bit, then the dry ingredients, then the choc chips. Bake as normal. The texture and composition of the cookie just got so much better!!!1 year ago
Ann Flora: Just yesterday I was wondering what else there is to do with split peas besides the regular old soup. Gotta try this!1 year ago
Margaret: This looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful, and I bet it tastes marvelous as well. I passed up the chance to get Super Natural Every Day yesterday and stuck to my book spending budget, but BOY was it hard…1 year ago
Kate C: I made this soup yesterday and it was so FUN to brown the butter with the spices. The butter foamed up in the pan as it browned and the spices smelled so heavenly! This is definitely my new favorite split pea soup recipe.15 weeks ago
Alexandra: This is so delicious. I just made it right this minute and I might not be able to stop eating it. It is mega delicious and so quick! Not to mention a pretty healthy little bowl of food! Thanks for reposting this! Exclamation point fiesta!!!15 weeks ago