Food You Can Eat: Split Pea Soup

24/6/21 butcherbakertoiletrymaker 14
Mm! Mm! Good!

First things first:  This is a recipe that my mother used to make when I was a kid.  At the time, having been raised on Campbell’s condensed soups, I didn’t really care for her homemade soups much.  The vegetables were too big and not that uniform cube shape.  There wasn’t that signature processed soup taste to it.  For a kid who grew up on the tail end of the processed food revolution, home made food was all pretty weird to me.  Now, you’d be hard pressed to find anything like that in our kitchen.

A caveat before we get started:  The recipe calls for a ham bone, but I used the bone I saved from the pork shoulder I used for the Carne Adovada recipe.  If you were a responsible FYCE reader, then you should have that pork shoulder bone in your freezer as you read this.  Waste not, want not.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Lb. Dried Green Split Peas

1 Meaty Ham Bone

1 ½ Cups Onion, diced

1 tsp. Salt

½ tsp. Pepper

1 Cup Celery, diced

1 Cup Carrots, diced

There are two methods to prepare the peas.  Choose either of the following:

  1. Cover peas with two quarts of cold water and soak overnight.
  2. Cover peas with two quarts of cold water and bring to a boil.  Simmer gently for two minutes, then turn off heat and allow to soak for one hour.

Once your peas are ready, add the bone, onion, salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1.5 hours.  Stir occasionally.

Remove bone from pot, then trim and dice any remaining meat from it.  Return meat to the soup along with the celery and carrots.  Continue to simmer, uncovered for 40 minutes.  Add additional salt if necessary.

This is so much better than Campbell’s.

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About butcherbakertoiletrymaker 600 Articles
When you can walk its length, and leave no trace, you will have learned.

14 Comments

  1. Oh, no pureeing? I had pea soup once but it was pureed and I did not like it. It’s a texture thing. This looks much better.
    Can you make this in a pressure cooker?

    • There are very few soups that actually lend themselves to pureeing.  Basically, your potato soups and your cream of whatevers.  But, beyond that, most soups are better when their ingredients can be chewed, not sucked through a straw.

      I have no idea if this can be made in a pressure cooker because I’ve never owned one and they don’t exist in restaurant kitchens–at least not in good restaurant kitchens.  So, give it a shot and let us know how it turns out.

      • Sorry, not sorry! I can make stock in my pressure cooker in 20 minutes. I love that, especially in summer.

      • I’ve made instapot pea soup.  It’s better than I’ve made in a pot, but I also soaked the peas overnight.  Probably could use a little extra time simmering, but it does work

    • I have made it in a crockpot and pressure cooker and actually prefer it in crockpot better than stove top.  I use a hamhock and cubed ham but I think the rest is the same.  You may need to adjust the liquid some for crockpot or pressure cooker depending on how thick you like it.  My pressure cooker has a soup setting but it is not quite long enough time especially if you go for the quick soak method above.

  2. That looks excellent, and I bet it would be good without the bone.

    • It’s…fine.  I’ve made it without the bone before and it was definitely lacking in flavor.

    • If you skip the ham bone, I’d add a little dijon mustard or red wine vinegar or probably both to boost the flavor a little. 

  3. [video src="https://y.yarn.co/c24c40e9-4615-4a6a-9456-11cadd288717.mp4" /]

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