Pea Soup With Smoked Turkey Wings

From: Chef #565650 Jim

On Jun 8, 2008

This is just plain & simple great "home cooking." It is simple & has common household ingredients. My wife surprised me with a smoked turkey leg on her last shopping trip. Make sure to cook smoked turkey until tender & cool to the touch. Remove all skin and little bones BEFORE chopping meat to add to soup at the end. Meat can either be added to soup just before serving by stiring into soup or placed in the bottom of the bowl as I did. Adding it to the bottom of the bowl added a nice "meat & color surprise." I used one piece of bacon chopped into small pieces (for additional flavor) with a little olive oil to saute the vegetables. Once the soup was blended (and this also thickens any watery portion of the soup) with a hand blender and in the bowls, I added 3 toppings to punch up the nutrition & color - sugar pea pods, julianne cut carrots, and yellow cauliflower. The were steamed in a little chicken broth in orderly piles in the bottom of a 12 inch skillet with a perfect sealing lid for about 3 or 4 minutes until tender. Any fresh or frozen vegetable would work. In the middle of the 3 colorful piles of steamed vegetables I added a spoon of sour cream with a piece of fresh basil in the middle of that. The sour cream adds an additional creamy & rich flavor component. The hot soup made the basil smell wonderful. I think I'll add freshly shredded basil to the next batch (just prior to serving) as I love the taste so much. Fresh parsley (shown), fresh cilanthro, or fresh tyme leaves could also be used as a color & flavor topping. The little old lady neighbor we shared it with said it was the best pea soup she had ever tasted and she loved the colorful top presentation and the meat surpise at the bottom of the bowl.