I made my first-ever batch of pea and ham soup today. It was a lot easier than I thought. I found a basic recipe on the web, but rather than go through the modifications, I figure I’ll go through it all step by step again since the original is a bit flaky.
See below the jump for the recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups green split peas
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 4 carrots, peeled, chopped
- 2 sticks celery, trimmed, chopped
- 1 brown onion, halved, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1kg ham or bacon hocks
- 9 cups cold water
Method
- Rinse split peas under cold running water until water runs clear. Drain.
- Heat oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add carrot, celery, onion and garlic, and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the onion softens.
- Add split peas, ham hocks and water. Bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for at least 3 hours or until ham hocks are tender and the meat is falling away from the bones. By this point, the peas should be disintegrating and the soup thickening up.
- Reduce to a low heat and cover the pan. Allow to develop for at least another 4 hours.
- Before serving, you may need to take the hocks out of the soup and remove the meat from the bone with a knife. Chop roughly and return to the soup.
You should be able to serve at this point, by reheating on a medium heat for 5 minutes on the stove, or in a microwave. Some serving suggestions include with fresh crusty bread, or maybe garnished with small crispy bits of bacon. I once had a pea and ham soup with sliced frankfurts (good, restaurant-made ones).
I’ll actually be leaving this batch to develop over the next day and have it to eat for dinner tomorrow night. Don’t forget to turn your stove off if you plan to sleep or leave the house!
One reply on “Pea and ham soup”
This is quite a long and complicated pea and ham soup recipe. I make one that has similar ingredients – carrot, onion, split peas, water, and hocks (I often use bacon hocks instead of ham hocks, as my local butcher carries them. Not so much of everything though! I tend to use one small onion, one large or two small carrots, 600g of hock maybe, 1 or 1 and a half cups peas, then as much water as looks right. I only tend to cook for an hour and a half, then when I am removing meat from the bones I give it a quick burst with a wand blender.
Benj likes it.