Pea and ham soup made with fresh bacon hocks

[Bender]

We made made a huge quantity of this over the weekend, froze most of it, and had some for dinner last night. Canberra has been b***dy cold the last few days (today: 3-9 degrees, fog, rain, forecast is for thunderstorms and hail this afternoon), so this was a great winter warmer. The soup, with fresh crusty bread, was yum! We watched Black Sheep, a Kiwi movie, on DVD afterwards.

Here's the recipe, which serves 4:

Ingredients:

• 50 g butter
• 2 onions, thinly sliced
• 1 ham hock (about 1kg) (we soaked this in water overnight before starting the soup)
• 500 g split green peas (we doubled this for a really thick soup)
• 3 litres Stock (we used low-salt vegetable stock from the supermarket)

Method:

• Heat butter in a large saucepan over low heat
• Add sliced onions and fry until brown
• Add bacon hock and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1½ hours
• Remove bacon hock and set aside
• Add split green peas to soup and simmer for 2 hours or until peas have dissolved and soup thickened
• Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (Try it first, it may be salty enough)
• Remove meat from hock, coarsely chop and add to soup
• Ladle soup into bowls and serve with crusty bread.

You could soak the peas overnight, strain and add to soup in the first step with bacon hock. This would shorten cooking time, as the soup will thicken faster.

Tip: beware - this soup can cause mega-farts!

[Bender]

For the soup above, we bought stock readymade stock from the supermarket. But it's easy to make your own too, and you can use it as a base for lots of soups:

Fill a large pot about 2/3 full with water. Add any combination of roughly chopped onion, leek, carrot and celery to fill the pot. Add a bay leaf and 1 teaspoon of peppercorns. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain and allow to cool. You can freeze the stock to use later.

[Fuzz]

Sounds like a variation of the Dutch erwtensoep? I love erwtensoep!!!! Mmmmmmmmm .....