So, here goes:
Get a bag of dried split peas, and rinse them off. Put them in your crock pot.
Make some chicken broth, either from stock you have, or from bouillon--I like to use that "Better than Bouillon" stuff. A couple cups of broth will do it. Add it to the peas.
Chop up an onion, and put it in a skillet to fry. I used a bit of olive oil and sprinkled some salt over the top. After it goes a while, add some chopped garlic. When everything starts to brown around the edges, add some cooking wine (or wine wine, but we were out). Cook it a little more, and add it to your pot.
While the onions are cooking, wash and chop up some carrots. I used four large carrots, cut into disks. Add these to the pot.
After your onions are done and in the crock pot, put a ham steak into the same skillet and cook it until it gets a nice brown coating on both sides. I like to cut off the fat and keep frying it while you chop up the meat into bite sized chunks. Then I either eat it like bacon or chop it up, too, and add it.
To season it I added some chopped dried marjoram from my herb pot. Also, I like to add some brown sugar or a few spoon fulls of molasses to give it a slightly sweet flavor--makes it taste like honey ham! Go easy on it at first, though--it's easier to taste everything once the soup starts to thicken up, at which point you can sweeten it more accurately.
Before:
I started it at 9:30 or so in the morning--it can cook all day until it is thick enough to spread on toast.
After:
Yum. Served with some sourdough toast and a glass of homebrewed Belgium beer. This is one that I wouldn't be afraid to serve to Brigid!
Notice: I did not add potatoes, celery, or bacon, all of which I have had in split pea soup. I have also had split pea soup that was thin and watery. Potatoes and water are fillers, I don't like celery, and I'm not going to dilute my bacon with a soup!
You may notice, also, that I did such things as add the fat from my ham and real sugar. If you are one o' them "health conscious" wackos, you probably should be looking in one of your specialty cookbooks. I don't eat to lose weight, I eat because it tastes good and I'm hungry. And the soup was good, and now I'm not hungry.
2 comments:
That's almost the same way we cook split pea soup. We whisk ours at the end sometimes, hubby's Mom used to blend it so he likes it kinda pureed. I like it with small chunks. I used my homemade bacon in the last batch. Your soup looks fabulous...I bet your mother loves this new routine.
I'll have to dig around in iphoto and see if I have the picture of my split pea soup artwork from last winter...you might want to try it :)
Looks great, nice and think,ham chunk-y. I like to boil mine around a leftover ham bone instead of stock with carrot and onion as you do. It may or may not get a dash of worcestershire sauce.
Why on earth would anyone add celery, potato, or some other froo-froo stuff to what is a deliciously shining example of spartan cooking?
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