Recipes supplied by  Richard Rust , a fabulous, 5 star trained, gourmet chef. He has cooked for, amongst others, British royalty, Woolworths and written for Taste magazine. His company Gourmet Gurus caters for children’s parties; lunch boxes; private/corporate functions and dinner parties.

Wonderful soup for cold wintry days. For a vegetarian option replace the bacon with feta and the chicken stock with vegetable stock. You can also make this a low fat (almost fat free) by removing the bacon and replacing the butter with a drop of oil. This soup is also great for freezing and keeps for 4 days in the fridge.

Serves 4
Preparation Time:  10minutes + soaking overnight of peas
Cooking Time:  45minutes
Ingredients:

10gm butter
2 small onion, peeled and finely diced
4 tbsp Marrow, diced
4 tbsp leeks, finely sliced
4 tbsp spring onion, finely sliced
600ml water
100gm split peas, soaked overnight and rinsed
2 medium potato, peeled and diced
Small pinch fine black pepper
2 tsp chicken stock
2 tsp maizena mixed with 2tbsp water
200gm streaky bacon, chopped and cooked

Method:

• In a pan melt the butter; add onion, marrow, leeks and spring onion. Cook until soft without browning.
• Add water, peas, potato, pepper and stock bring to the boil.
• Whisk in the maizena and cook for 30minutes or until the peas are tender.
• Stick blend until completely smooth, bring back to boil with the cooked bacon and serve

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