Swedish Pea Soup (Ärtsoppa) Recipe

Swedish Pea Soup (Ärtsoppa)

I’ve read somewhere that Swedish pea soup started being served even before the Vikings came into existence. It became the traditional Thursday meal when Sweden converted to Catholicism. Around 1530 Sweden converted to Lutheranism but the soup remained a Thursday meal. Even today restaurants serve this on Thursdays, along with pancake.

Small confession. I didn’t completely follow the recipe below. I added some harissa, which is very un-Swedish, and I left out pork, which is very un-Swedish. It still turned out nice.

Source: delishhh

Ingredients

500g of dried yellow or green peas

300g of boneless cured ham or pork cut into ½ inch cubes

6 -7 cups water

2 yellow onions finely chopped

1 leek finely chopped

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon marjoram

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon of finely chopped ginger

1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard

Salt to taste (depending on your cured meat)

Directions

1.      Soak peas in water over night. Next day rinse them and add to a pot with about 6 cups of water. Bring to boil and boil for 2 minutes and then remove from heat and let stand covered for 1 hour. If there is foam on top remove that.

2.      Dice meat, onion and leek and simmer in a pot for 15 minutes. Add the peas and the rest of the ingredients to the meat and onion mixture, cover and simmer for about 2 hours. After 2 hours add salt to taste.

3.      Serve with mustard.

Swedish Pea Soup (Ärtsoppa)

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