Zöldborsóleves

The story

Zöldborsóleves, green pea soup with small egg dumplings, is an everyday Hungarian soup rather than a holiday dish. Writing for the Budapest news site Telex in June 2023, the food writer Bori Ács called the classic pea soup with nokedli one of two pea dishes she cooks every month, the other being zöldborsófőzelék, a thick pea stew. It is not an Easter custom. The traditional soup of the Hungarian Easter Sunday meal is húsleves, a clear meat broth with noodles, and Telex marked the start of the fresh-pea season in mid-June, well after a late-March Easter. What makes the soup Hungarian is the method. Carrots and parsley root are softened in fat, a spoonful of flour is toasted into a light roux, and sweet paprika is stirred in off the heat, because scorched paprika turns bitter. A soft egg dough is then pinched or pressed straight into the simmering pot. Ács pointed out that frozen peas are cheap and need no shelling, and warned that overcooked peas turn gray and lose their taste, so they go in near the end. On a spring menu, serve it before a cold ham platter or a lamb stew.