Bonjour my friends I'm Frankie and welcome to Club Foody!
Both January and February can be frigid. It's snowy, cold, wet and gray! What we want during these months
is something to warm us up. Something that is filling, extremely flavorful and hot! I believe
a nice warm bowl of soup is what we're all looking for... In today's episode, I'll show you how to make
my Split Pea and Ham Soup! Wow, what a recipe! the smokiness from the ham and the creaminess
from the peas is simply the greatest combination during the winter months. It's very easy to make
and will warm up your soul... So my friends, let's get cooking! In a Dutch oven over medium heat, we'll add
butter and while it's melting, we'll make a bouquet garni. So we'll tightly roll a few basil leaves and
cut them into long strips - this slicing technique is called chiffonade. Then we'll use fresh thyme.
To detach the leaves from the stem, I'm using my herb stripper... an amazing little gadget for that.
Now we'll place a bay leaf in a sachet or you can use a cheesecloth if you like and the two
other herbs. We'll tie the bag nice and tight or if you're using a cheesecloth, you'll do it with a
kitchen twine... and that's it, our bouquet garni is done! All right, back to the stove... We'll add onions
diced celery and diced carrots. We'll give it a good stir before seasoning with
freshly ground black pepper. We'll combine again and cook until the vegetables are soft, about 5
to 7 minutes stirring often. To this, we'll add pressed garlic and sauté for only 1 minute. Next
we'll add green split peas that have been rinsed and sorted then the ham - I'm using the shank
because there's more meat to it but you can always use the hock. Well now pour in chicken broth and
also vegetable broth plus some lemon juice and we'll add our bouquet garni to it as well.
In case you're not using fresh herbs and use dried instead, add them when sautéeing the garlic, right!
So we'll blend the ingredients and bring the mixture to a boil. When it gets there, we'll
reduce the heat to medium and cook for 1:30 hours, flipping the ham every 15 minutes
and stirring occasionally. About halfway through cooking, the soup will start getting much thicker
so what we'll do is to simply turn the heat down to medium low and start stirring more often.
We'll also carefully remove the ham from the pot and place it on a cutting board. Now the next step
we have to do is to remove the skin, fat and bone then discard them. When this is done, we'll cut the
meat into small pieces and return to the soup. My shank had a lot of meat and I ended up with a cup
and a half which is great! So we'll give a good stir and continue cooking for the remaining time.
That took me a good 20 minutes to clean off the ham and it might take you a while for you as well.
About 10 minutes before the end of cooking, we'll taste and adjust seasoning if necessary -
mine needed more pepper and salt. The reason why I didn't season with salt earlier
is because I wasn't sure how salty the ham was. That's the problem with most Split Pea Soups;
they're too salty because they're seasoned too soon. So when the cooking time is up,
we'll remove the sachet or cheesecloth if you use one, and simply discard it...
And my friends, this is our Split Pea and Ham Soup! Thick, creamy, smoky and so delicious, this is such a
satisfying and hearty recipe! Perfectly seasoned, this flavorful soup is great to have during the
cold winter months and it will definitely warm you up... I hope you give it a try soon and be sure to
visit clubfoody.com for ingredient amounts, directions and more info...
Until next time my friends, bon appétit!