Chilled Pea Soup with Goat Cheese from a Normandy Culinary Tour

Instructions

1. Start by cooking the peas for 7 minutes in the chicken broth and peeled garlic clove.
2. Drain the peas, but reserve the stock and discard the garlic.
3. Peel and chop the spring onions. Add these spring onions to the peas along with half of the basil bunch (which has already been roughly chopped) and whiz in a food processor.
4. To the spring onion, peas, and basil mixture, add some of the chicken stock until you obtain the desired consistency, but keep whatever stock you don’t use. (You’ll want this remaining stock in case the soup thickens as it later chills. You can simply add a couple of tablespoons of cold stock to loosen up the soup’s consistency later on).
5. Season to taste with the salt and pepper, and then add the butter and blend again. Allow to cool and chill in the fridge.
6. While the pea mixture is chilling, mash the goat cheese with the thick cream.
7. Finely chop the remaining basil, chop the almonds, and add both the basil and almonds to the cream mixture. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
8. Form small quenelles of the cheese mixture using 2 teaspoons.
9. Serve the chilled soup by placing the quenelles on top of the soup.
   You can also add a pinch of cayenne or Esplette pepper to give the soup a little kick! The creamy goat cheese will mellow out the flavors of the cayenne or Esplette pepper.