What To Do With Pea Soup Paste?

March 29, 2012 1:35 PM

Super Concentrated Soup? So I made split pea and pesto with pork soup two nights ago and I made too much. It also sat on low for a bit too long and is now a thick green paste. What do I do with it? Is it still safe to eat? Can i do anything to it besides adding water and making more soup? How best can I use these leftovers?

The soup itself was just split peas on low heat with stock and water, lime juice, pesto, and some previously cooked pork cubes. Its in a bowl under tin foil in the fridge.

posted by The Whelk to food & drink (16 answers total)

Freeze half of your pea soup concentrate. Add water later when you thaw it out.
posted by ldthomps at 1:37 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wrap some salmon in pancetta, fry then oven bake it; cook some saute potatoes; reduce the peas down further (if needed), and serve it as a side to that?
posted by Hartster at 1:38 PM on March 29, 2012

(reheated obvs; I'm definitely very much on the lax side of worrying about reheating food although)
posted by Hartster at 1:40 PM on March 29, 2012

I'd eat it over rice like a curry.
posted by something something at 1:41 PM on March 29, 2012 [5 favorites]

Should be fine to eat.

Might be a good dip?

Or a spread for sandwich, wrap, crostini.

Also might try stuffing it into wonton wrappers, then pan-frying and sprinkling with sea salt.
posted by bunderful at 1:43 PM on March 29, 2012

I would maybe mush a little bit of it up with an egg & flour mixture (or something similarly binding) and try frying it like polenta.
posted by elizardbits at 1:43 PM on March 29, 2012

It's fine, and you can freeze it as a base, or scoop some onto little balls, roll in some sort of cracker/flour/panko meal and fry up as patties or like meatballs.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:44 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Heat with some cream for a pasta sauce?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:46 PM on March 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

I've done this a few times - freeze it and when you come to reheat, just add more stock. Yum.
posted by humph at 3:59 PM on March 29, 2012

SO and I do this; it helps conserve space in the freezer if you're freezing "concentrate" rather than dilute soup. As others have said, just add water while you're reheating it.

The one caveat I have is that, given the consistency, you'l probably want to add water to the pot when you start defrosting--and not just thin the mixture when it's thawed. Otherwise, it would sort of be like thawing, say, mashed potatoes; without much liquid, there's nothing to distribute the heat, and so you can burn your soup.

But yum, split pea soup.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 4:00 PM on March 29, 2012

Perfectly normal and safe. Split peas do this even not over heat. They'll do it in the fridge, too. Just add water and possibly salt when you reheat and you're good.
posted by jocelmeow at 4:55 PM on March 29, 2012

Usually when I make too much of something and don't feel like repurposing it, I just share it with my friends and co-workers.

If you're feeling like experimenting though, I'd thin it out just a bit with some chicken or veggie stock, introduce a couple or three happy kinds of cheese and make a casserole out of it.

I know that sounds like something from one of Lileks' web pages, but done with an even hand it could be delicious!
posted by snsranch at 5:34 PM on March 29, 2012

It'll be fine to eat and you can thin it out with either water or stock. It also freezes very well.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:59 PM on March 29, 2012

You don't have pea soup: you have pease porridge. Hot, cold, nine days old -- it's all good.

According to this source, the traditional version was eaten over a long period of time, but you'd probably get pretty tired of it. So freeze half, and try the pease polenta that elizardbits suggested.
posted by maudlin at 8:38 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, what Maudlin says, though my (90yrs old, English) father calls it pease pudding. It's great.
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 4:12 PM on March 30, 2012

Thanks! I have these odd lacunae in my cooking education so basic stuff like this just flies over my head - So far it's been rolled in flour and fried as a snack, spread as a paste in a sandwich and thinned into a soup before going back in the freezer to await future desperate curry nights.
posted by The Whelk at 10:39 AM on April 2, 2012