Thea's Green Pepper Soup with Cotherstone Crisp

Apr 14, 2026

Thea of 'What's That You're Cooking, Thea?' fame regularly uses cheese in her recipes and has a particular soft spot for Cotherstone. She created this recipe for her substack recently and wrote that today’s recipe is an easy vegetarian number that can be a lunch or dinner. You can easily double the recipe if you want to batch cook. Green peppers and cheese are an excellent pairing. The bitter edge of the peppers is softened by the salty cheese, and it works particularly well if the cheese has an underlying milky sweetness, like (my favourite cheese) Cotherstone from Neal’s Yard Dairy does.

Ingredients

For the soup

6 green peppers (ideally long Turkish peppers)
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 potato, peeled and cubed
½ tsp aleppo pepper (pul biber, or other chilli flake)
600ml vegetable stock
Juice of half a lime
2 handfuls of fresh coriander, chopped

For the crisp

100g Cotherstone cheese, grated
1 tsp white sesame
1 tsp black sesame
1 tsp dried oregano (ideally Mexican but any will do)


Method

  1. Turn oven on to 180C. Season the green peppers and toss in oil then roast them in a tray for 30-40 minutes until well browned.
  2. Finely chop the onion then fry in olive oil for 7 minutes, until turning translucent and golden at the edges. Add the garlic and keep cooking for a further 2-3 minutes.
  3. Next, add the roasted peppers, followed by the potato, the aleppo pepper and the stock. Cook together for 15-20 minutes until the potato is completely tender.
  4. Now add the lime juice and the fresh coriander, and season to taste. Blitz with a stick blender until smooth to your liking.
  5. Finally, to make the cheese crisp garnish, toast the seeds in a small frying pan and scatter in the grated cheese all over the pan. Allow to melt and sizzle away until the fat bubbles. Allow to bubble for 1-2 minutes on a medium-low heat, then sprinkle in the oregano. It should be completely golden and lacy on the underside when done.
  6. Allow to sit for a minute or so to firm up a bit, then use a spatula to ease the crisp away from the pan around the edges first, and then underneath in a bold, confident movement. It should come away in one full circle. Place on a chopping board and use a bread knife to cut into 4 triangles, like you would a pizza.
  7. Serve the soup warm in bowls, topped with the cheese crisp triangles and a drizzle of olive oil. Enjoy!
Back to Recipes