Gingery Split Pea Soup

Let me begin this post with a travel tip: if you're leaving for a week-long trip to a fabulous mountainside apartment, you probably shouldn't pack your things at 5 AM with a raging fever. You'll probably forget a lot of random things, like sunscreen and long underwear and sharp knives. All this to say that although I cooked this soup in idyllic conditions (above is the view from the apartment we were loaned for the week), the cooking conditions were not exactly ideal.

If you've ever cooked in a vacation apartment, you'll know that the equipment furnished is generally sketchy at best. Dull knives are a given, and things like graters and peelers don't always exist. But I had remembered my cookbook and a bunch of important ingredients (though I also forgot a few), and I was determined to cook the soup and stay on schedule.

 So the vegetables got an, ahem, rough chop. This was kind of a problem for the ginger. I had brought my remaining red lentils, but they weren't enough. The minimart at the ski village where we were staying didn't stock split peas, but the kitchen we were staying in had green lentils, so I threw them in. And I had forgotten to bring rosemary and bay leaf, so I threw in some herbes de provence. Close enough, right? And I used a bouillon cube because it was there.

But check it out--I cooked the soup in a pressure cooker--probably one from the 70s. It scared me, but it did not in fact explode, and the soup cooked really quickly--by the time I had cleaned the kitchen and set the table, the soup was done. Such is also the nature of the vacation home kitchen--sometimes you have a pleasant surprise.

It was kind of fun to cook in this tiny kitchen, with the two-burner stove and tiny fridge and toaster oven. It was very similar to the kitchen I cooked in when I was a college student in Germany. Except I had better knives even back then.

And the soup? Well, it all got eaten--I'm beginning to really appreciate that about Melissa Clark's recipes. But no-one really went crazy over it. The ginger didn't get chopped finely enough (yes, that's the blame-avoiding passive right there), and so it dominated a bit much for my taste. The rosemary would have added a nice touch,  and I also think I would have liked the soup better with split peas. I guess to summarize, I wasn't thrilled with the soup as I made it, but I believe the soup as it was originally conceived would be really good. I'll have to try it again now that I once again have a clear head and a well-equipped kitchen.