The Princess and the Pea Soup Recipe

The first recipe that I am cooking with my two sons is a pea soup, since we can imagine that the princess - in the fairy tale the Princess and the Pea - ate pea soup once she came in from the rain.

The problem is that my sons are not too keen on princess stories, so I have had to add on a section about how the prince that looked for the princesses, had been out killing dragons and goblins first. So here goes.

The Princesses and the Pea Soup

ONCE upon a time there were two princes who both wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. They travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could they get what they wanted. They travelled throughout the world, and where ever there were dragons and goblins in their way, they would fight against them with their mighty swords.

There were enough who claimed to be princesses, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. So they came home again asad, for they would have liked very much to have a real princess.

One evening a terrible storm came on; there was thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.

Two small princesses were standing out there in front of the gate. But, good gracious! what a sight the rain and the wind had made them look. The water ran down from their hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of their shoes and out again at the heels.

The old king and queen took the cold little princesses inside the castle.

The old king and queen told the two princes to prepare with them a nice pot of pea soup for the princesses.

The two princes collected the ingredients together, which included:

200g/7oz peas

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic

1 onion

300ml/10fl oz hot chicken stock

50ml/2fl oz cream

Ground black peper

Chilli flakes

Then the two princes started cooking with the help of the old king.

Firstly, they chopped the garlic and the onion. Then the old king heated the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat.

Subsequently, they added the onion and garlic and fry for 3-4 minutes, until softened.

The frozen peas and chicken stock were added, and the pot was boiling. The prince and his brother reduced the heat and let it simmer for ten minutes.

Then they added the cream and used a hand blender to liquidise the soup. They did not normally have hand blenders in the past, but since the prince and his brother had time travelled to the future, they had brought one back, so they could make delicious food.

Finally, the two princes decided to season the soup, to taste, with freshly ground black pepper and served the pea soup in a warm bowl to the princess.

Meanwhile, eating the pea soup, the princesses told the old king, queen and the two princes that indeed they were real princessed.

“Well, we’ll soon find that out,” thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

On this the princesses had to lie all night. In the morning they were asked how they had slept.

“Oh, very badly!” they said. “ We have scarcely closed my eyes all night. Heaven only knows what was in the bed, but we were lying on something hard, so we are black and blue all over my body. It’s horrible!”

Now they knew that these two were real princesses because they had felt the pea right through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down beds.

Nobody but a real princess could be as sensitive as that.

So the two princes married the two princesses, for now they knew that they had a real princesses; and the pea was put in the museum, where it may still be seen. And they obviously enjoy eating pea soup again and again.