Vegan yellow split pea soup with smokey baked apple slices
I have a recipe for yellow split pea soup with smoked cheese and apple on here. I’ve never made it since that first time and it will probably be deleted soon. But I liked the idea of a yellow split pea soup with some smokey flavours and some apple. Also, I wanted to make it vegan. I’m not sure if this new recipe is going to work out long term. But there’s something I like about it. I may tweak the ingredients in future.
I have a collection of very short cookbooks that are part of a Great Recipes of the World collection. Not sure how I got the collection, but they are a source of great inspiration. When I came across the recipe for a yellow split pea dhal I decided to turn it into a soup with the ingredients I had on hand.
The apple slices are sprinkled with a mix of Chinese 5 Spice, Cinnamon and Smoked Paprika and baked. I didn’t add any oil or butter to them – so they are a little dry when baked. They’re not crispy. They taste more like slightly spicy dried apple slices. I liked how they worked with the spicy soup though. I think this is much better than the other soup. And I can label it heart-healthy. Love when I can do that.
Ingredients
- 1 cup yellow split peas
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 celery sticks, sliced
- 2 carrots, sliced
- ½ yellow & red bell pepper, deseeded & diced
- 1” ginger root, peeled & grated
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 1.5 litres vegetable stock
- 1.5 tsp ground turmeric
- 1.5 tsp garam masala
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 sprig of thyme
- salt & freshly ground black pepper
- ½ tbsp sunflower oil
- 2 sweet crisp apples, cored and sliced thinly
- ½ tsp Chinese 5 spice
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
Instructions
- Make the Soup
- Heat some sunflower oil in a deep saucepan. stir in the onions, carrots and celery. Cover the pan, reduce the heat and let sweat for 5 minutes, until they have softened.
- Next add in the diced pepper, ginger, garlic, turmeric, garam masala and a little black pepper. Stir in well. Cover the pan and leave to sweat for another 5 minutes.
- Turn the heat up high and stir in the stock, bay leaves and thyme. Let it come to the boil and add in the yellow split peas. Let it cook on high for 10 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to moderate and let simmer for 45 minutes or until the split peas are mashably soft. Turn off the heat. Remove the sprig of thyme and bay leaves. Use a potato masher or a hand blender to roughly blend the soup. Let the soup cool for 10 - 15 minutes. Taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. It will need at least a half teaspoon of salt.
- Turn the oven on to 180° C. Line a baking tray and place the apple slices on it. Mix the Chinese 5 spice, cinnamon and smoked paprika together. Sprinkle the slices with the spices on both sides. Place in the oven to bake for 30 minutes.
- Top each helping of soup with some apple slices.
