The beginning of January is the darkest time of the winter, Christmas is over and all the lights are coming down, the constant parties are over, it is time to snuggle down crank up the heat or light the fire and wallow in comfort food. One of my comfort foods is split pea soup. If I am not feeling well, or just extremely lazy the only canned soup I will touch is Habitant pea soup. This weekend I was not feeling ill or lazy, I just felt like pea soup, so I decided to make my own.
Makes about 6 servings
1 meaty ham hock (I picked up a beautiful ham hock from Hopcott's)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 leeks cleaned and chopped
4 carrots
1 bay leaf
450g package of split green peas
Cover the ham hock with water in a large pot
Simmer on low for 3 or 4 hours, until the meat is falling off the bone.
Drain off the ham keeping the cooking water as this is the basis for the soup. Clean the pot out and add the oil and then the leek and carrot.
Cook until the leek is starting to soften then pour in the saved cooking water making sure that you have 8 cups. You can add a little water to make it up if necessary. Then add the split peas and the bay leaf.
Cook for around 30 to 40 minutes until the peas are soft. While this is cooking strip the meat off the ham hock and shred it.
The ham off this bone was absolutely delicious and it was hard to restrain myself from eating right there and then. But I managed to leave some for the soup which I added back in before it finished cooking. Check for seasoning depending on the ham you may not need to add any salt, but a good grind of black pepper would not go astray.
This soup did two lunches at work and 2 dinners for 2 this week, yes it was a lot of split pea soup but I love it, I probably could have frozen some for lunches another day.
No pretty pictures of the soup in a bowl, because each time I ate it, I devoured it so quickly I forgot to take a picture!
Makes about 6 servings
1 meaty ham hock (I picked up a beautiful ham hock from Hopcott's)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 leeks cleaned and chopped
4 carrots
1 bay leaf
450g package of split green peas
Cover the ham hock with water in a large pot
Simmer on low for 3 or 4 hours, until the meat is falling off the bone.
Drain off the ham keeping the cooking water as this is the basis for the soup. Clean the pot out and add the oil and then the leek and carrot.
Cook until the leek is starting to soften then pour in the saved cooking water making sure that you have 8 cups. You can add a little water to make it up if necessary. Then add the split peas and the bay leaf.
Cook for around 30 to 40 minutes until the peas are soft. While this is cooking strip the meat off the ham hock and shred it.
The ham off this bone was absolutely delicious and it was hard to restrain myself from eating right there and then. But I managed to leave some for the soup which I added back in before it finished cooking. Check for seasoning depending on the ham you may not need to add any salt, but a good grind of black pepper would not go astray.
This soup did two lunches at work and 2 dinners for 2 this week, yes it was a lot of split pea soup but I love it, I probably could have frozen some for lunches another day.
No pretty pictures of the soup in a bowl, because each time I ate it, I devoured it so quickly I forgot to take a picture!
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