Split Pea and Ham Soup

Ingredients

• 400 g dried split peas, rinsed
• 400 g smoked gammon or ham hock
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• a few sprigs of thyme
• 30 g butter
• plenty of black pepper

Method

1. Simmer the ham first

   Cover the gammon with 2 litres of cold water, bring to a simmer and skim the grey foam off. Cook for 45 minutes. That cooking liquid becomes the stock, which is why this soup needs no stock cube.

   45 min

2. Add the peas, no salt

   Add the split peas, bay and thyme and simmer for another 45 minutes until the peas have collapsed. Do not salt yet — the gammon is salty and split peas stay stubbornly hard in salted water.

   45 min

3. Sweat the vegetables separately

   Meanwhile cook the onion, carrot and celery in the butter until soft, and stir them in for the last 20 minutes. Added at the start they would disintegrate completely.

   20 min

4. Shred the ham back in

   Lift the meat out, discard any fat and skin, shred it and return it to the pot. Fish out the bay leaves.

5. Season and adjust

   Now taste for salt — it may need none — and add plenty of black pepper. Thin with water if it has gone past thick into solid; it sets almost like a paste once cold.