Chilled Pea and Mint Velouté with Crisp Crab Beignets

⏱ 75 min · Serves 4

Silky, vivid green pea soup shot through with fresh mint, served ice-cold against piping hot beignets stuffed with sweet white crab. It's a study in contrasts — cool and creamy, hot and crunchy — and it looks like it came straight off a tasting menu.

Per serving: 610 kcal · 25.0g protein · 45.0g carbs · 36.0g fat

Ingredients

• For the velouté:
• 25g butter
• 1 small onion, finely sliced
• 1 leek (white part only), sliced
• 1 medium floury potato (150g), diced small
• 500ml light vegetable or chicken stock, cold
• 500g frozen petits pois
• 20g mint leaves (about a large handful)
• 100ml double cream
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• Salt and white pepper
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• For the crab beignets:
• 150g white crab meat, picked
• 50g brown crab meat (optional, for depth)
• 1 spring onion, very finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• Pinch of cayenne
• 100g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 large egg
• 120ml cold sparkling water
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying
• To finish:
• 2 tbsp crème fraîche
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Pea shoots or micro mint

Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Sweat the onion and leek with a pinch of salt for 8 minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the potato and stock, bring to a simmer and cook 12 minutes until the potato is tender.
2. Turn the heat to high, add the peas and sugar and boil hard for just 3 minutes — no longer, or you lose the colour.
3. Tip into a blender with the mint leaves and cream and blitz on full power for 2 minutes until completely smooth. Season generously with salt, white pepper and lemon juice (it needs more salt than you think when cold).
4. Pass through a fine sieve into a bowl set over ice. Stir until cold, then chill for at least 45 minutes. Taste and re-season once cold.
5. Meanwhile, make the beignet mix: gently fold the crab meat with the spring onion, lemon zest, cayenne and a pinch of salt. Keep chilled.
6. Whisk the flour and baking powder with the egg and cold sparkling water to a thick, just-combined batter — lumps are fine, overmixing is not. Fold in the crab.
7. Heat the oil to 180°C in a deep pan (no more than a third full). Drop in heaped dessertspoons of the mixture, 4 or 5 at a time, and fry for 2–3 minutes, turning, until deep golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and season with salt immediately. You should get 12 beignets.
8. Pour the chilled velouté into shallow bowls. Swirl in a spoon of loosened crème fraîche, drizzle with olive oil and scatter pea shoots. Serve the hot beignets alongside and eat straight away.