Two courses in one: Delicate Pea and Lettuce Soup

Lettuce, peas, leeks, garlic, tarragon, butter and cream make a fresh soup that can be served warm or cold, and tastes like spring. Recipe below.

SOUP OR SALAD? IT’S A QUESTION most of us have answered countless times in restaurants. This soup, made with six cups of chopped lettuce, lets you answer “both.” Next question: who would make lettuce a main ingredient in a soup? French cooks, of course. And it is brilliant.

The recipe is from Melissa Clark’s beautiful cookbook published just last year, Dinner in French. Clark is a food writer, cookbook author and reporter for the New York Times food section. She isn’t French—doesn’t even really speak French, she claims—but is “fluent in the kitchen.” As is often the case, this is the result of happenstance. A great-aunt and great-uncle dragged her parents to Europe one year, and they fell in love with France. “My parents went back every year,” she says, “first by themselves and then with my sister and me in tow.”

Dinner in French is a collection of delightful recipes, some of them based on French technique rooted in Clark’s “New York-Jewish-Francophile DNA” and some genuinely French, but “seasoned with a dose of Brooklyn moxie.” The book is richly illustrated with gorgeous photographs by Laura Edwards.

But lettuce in soup. Seriously? That very idea is what intrigued us. Combined with the peas, the green leaf lettuce (you can also use romaine, Boston or Little Gem) made it bright and fresh, tasting like spring or summer. And tasting unlike anything else we’ve ever eaten. The mere tablespoon of fresh tarragon added to the overall freshness. Of course, being French, other ingredients included a leek, garlic, loads of butter and some cream. And, being French, it was puréed and could be served warm or chilled. We ate it both ways—they were equally delicious.

Clark has you top the warm version with a dollop of lemon-zested ricotta, which she calls optional. We tried it because we love ricotta and lemon, but the soup itself was so good, simple and complex at the same time, that we don’t think it really needs it. Also, while you can make it with now-in-season fresh peas, frozen peas are just fine in it, making it easier to keep this soup in rotation all summer long. We certainly will.

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Delicate Pea and Lettuce Soup

Lettuce and peas are the heart of a soup that can be served warm or cold, and tastes like spring.

Course Soup

Cuisine French

Servings 6 as a first course

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter divided
• 1 large leek, white and pale green parts only, diced (or 1 large white onion—see Kitchen Notes)
• 6 cups chopped lettuce, such as green leaf, romaine, Boston or Little Gem
• 3 cups frozen peas, or about 2-1/2 pounds fresh peas, shelled to make 3 cups (see Kitchen Notes)
• 2 cups homemade chicken or reduced-sodium store-bought (to make it vegetarian, you can use vegetable stock)
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt plus more if needed (or use slightly less table salt)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half

For optional ricotta topping

• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• zest of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

• Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium flame. Add the leek and cook, stirring frequently, until it is soft and translucent, about 7 minutes. Don’t let it brown—reduce heat, if needed. Add garlic and cook another 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add lettuce and cook, stirring frequently, until it wilts, another 7 minutes.
• Add peas, stock, 1 cup of water, remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, and the salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 5 minutes, until peas are soft. Using a slotted spoon, transfer about 1/2 cup of the peas to a small bowl and reserve (honestly, this was probably the most painstaking part of cooking this soup).
• Stir in the tarragon and cream. Purée the soup until smooth, using a blender and working in batches. (Clark says you can also use an immersion blender, but that didn’t get it as smooth as we wanted it to be—use a blender.) Then return it to the pot. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt, if needed.
• If you’re making the ricotta topping, fold together the ricotta, the lemon zest and a little salt in a medium bowl; we found this took some serious stirring to soften the ricotta.
• If you’re serving the soup warm, ladle it into individual soup bowls. Top with a dollop of the ricotta, a sprinkling of the whole peas and some chopped tarragon. Serve.
• If you’re serving it chilled, refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours. Ladle into individual soup bowls and top with whole peas and tarragon. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

Clean those leeks. They love to harbor sand. Cut off the root base and tops, then halve lengthwise. Holding each half under cold running water, fan out the layers to rinse out the grit.

Peas, frozen or...? We love fresh peas when they're in season, often just shelling and eating them like that (and often, on the way home from the market!). But frozen peas are just so convenient for this dish—and just as good. You can thaw them in advance, but we didn't even do that. It took a little longer for the pot to come to a simmer after adding them, but we just started timing the 5-minute cook time from there.

Liz’s Crockery Corner. This handsome bowl is a semi-regular here, one of the many one-offs we’ve acquired over the years. We got it several years ago at Sur la Table. It is a Pearl Stoneware Soup Plate, and (checks website) I’m surprised and delighted to see that it’s still available! Besides the nice proportions and the beauty of the bowl, we like that it’s made in Portugal, a country noted for its commercial ceramics. Portugal is also renowned for its artisanal pottery.