How Easter's Ham Bone Became Split Pea Soup...

After our glimpse of Spring the grey and rainy weather is back so it's the perfect time to throw some hearty soup on for dinner.  I gave this recipe a whirl a couple weeks ago and it was incredible.

Before we start you are going to need a good pair of cooking moccasins (or house slippers), there is a bit of waiting to do so you might as well be comfortable.

This was my journey...

I have never attempted to make split pea soup before. 

In fact I don't remember even trying it until last winter, at Mary's Pizza Shack of all places!  But, if I liked the soup a pizza place can throw together I know I'm going to love this.  

A while back I picked up this little vintage recipe book that is essentially a road map for eating your way across the States in the 1950's.  The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places, these must have flown off the shelves!  The illustrations alone make it worth leafing through.  On the left coast any mention of pea soup is synonomous with Anderson's Pea Soup and my little book happens to have the recipe.

Since my pea soup manual was at home, I was at the office and the market is right in between I starting searching all my go-to sites online for a recipe.  I quickly realized that there is a lot that I don't know about the basics of this soup.

For instance, the main ingredient ...Peas.

Some recipes called for frozen peas, some for fresh (I'd have to fill my entire trunk with pods to get a pound of peas!),others for split peas; which I couldn't picture for the life of me so I had to look those up too! Turns out they are those little things we glued to cardboard when making the grass for our California Mission Projects as kids! Even these need to be picked through looking for "rocks". I assume that means extremely dried up peas.  Some say soak the dried peas others say absolutely do not.  

Now for the ham bone...I saw recipes that called for ham bone and others that require ham hocks.  I had no idea if that was just a different word for the same thing so I opened another search window.  I'm pretty sure my bone just has ham that our beautifully buzzed host couldn't remove from the bone, not whatever the skin wrapped, fat, ligaments and tendons shown in the image I pulled up was.  Of course that fatty thing is suppose to provided a unique taste and consistency so I added it to my shopping list.

I was getting overwhelmed fast and seriously considered throwing the bone to my pups and grilling up a steak.

There were so many unique variations that you could make enough for an army, separate it out, freeze it and then turn the base into something new each time.  There are recipes that use yellow curry, chorizo, sausage etc.  I am absolutely addicted to Jimmy Dean's Sage Sausage I put it in pasta sauces, soups, eggs, pizzas etc.  I'm thinking I may need to find a way to squeeze it in here if the ham thing doesn't work out.


After all this I got on the phone with my genius twin and she has tried and tweaked the following recipe into a masterpiece!

Time: 2 ½ hours

1lbs dried split peas

Pick through (black or super dried) and rinse (dusty)

1 tablespoon Herbs De Provence

Salt to taste 
(No need, ham is SALTY...especially the next day. Seriously, don't do it.)

1 quart chicken broth/ 1 quart of water or 2 quarts of chicken broth 
(In hind sight I would use low sodium.)

3 carrots peeled and chopped

1 whole small yellow onion

2 ribs of celery chopped

1 cup cubed ham

 *Boar’s Head Sweet Sliced Ham 
(Butcher/deli will cut one inch slab)

2 tablespoons of lemon juice
(I added a preserved lemon)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

*Sarah's favorite :)

Directions:

Put water, chicken broth, bone, ham, peas, garlic, herbs (no veggies or lemon juice) into soup pot, bring to boil & cover…bring down to simmer for an hour.

Then add carrots, onion, celery until peas break down (approx ½ hour)

Take out bone (meat should be off) let cool and remove any additional meet. Use a slotted spoon to remove additional meet. 

Remove and throw out skin other things you wouldn’t want to eat. I.e. ham hock

Boat motor (I giggled, briefly misunderstanding what she had said and teased her a little making her explain exactly what a boat motor meant at her house)/hand mixer/drink mixer to puree soup, or you can use blender.  It will smooth out the soup by breaking down veggies leaving you lovely chunks of meat to return after blending.

Stir in lemon juice, salt & pepper (lemon pepper would be a nice touch).

You can load this baby up and top it with a dollop of sour cream (I used Greek yogurt), chives or scallions, bacon crumbles (seared PORK BELLY!), cheddar etc.

If you are planning ahead, the night before would be a good time to give the easiest bread ever a try! It needs to rise for 8-12 hours.

Since this made a lot of soup and there are only two of us I brought it in to the office the next day.  The guys loved it (which I'm not going to let go to my head since they are a couple of Mikey's and will eat just about anything)!  Warning: It was quite a bit saltier after sitting over night.

So what I'm about to say next goes against just about everything I normally practice but you have to either do the dishes as you go or immediately after.  If you don't you will need a jack hammer or a perfectly timed sale on a new blender, pot and serving bowl. I recommend as you go because afterwards you are going to be full and enjoying that big, juicy red that you just refilled since wine almost always accompanies soup & bread...especially on rainy nights.   

Here are some of the recipes that caught my eye...

Cook Better Than Most Restaurants warns not to funk it up by getting fancy:

Mom's Split Pea Soup 

The brilliant Emeril Lagasse pairs his Ham & Split Pea Soup with Parmesan Truffled Potato Chips

and Real Restaurant Recipes boasts that their Split Pea Soup Recipe would cause Split Pea Anderson to change to this recipe!

I found this one on Pinterest and it was truly the prettiest bowl of soup I've ever seen!

Better Homes & Gardens Ham and Pea Soup

I know I got a little link crazy but it was the rabbit hole I fell down so I'm taking you along for the ride!