Pea Soup

Split Pea Soup
by Greg Snow

2 lbs split green peas

4 ham shanks (make certain they are smoked)

1 huge onion

2 cups celery with leaves

1 cup carrots

6 cloves garlic

2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

salt to taste

Shank vs. Hock

I love soup and soup loves me right back, but there's a schism out in the culinary world that we must address before we continue. That of course is the use of smoked pork joints. If you're making baked beans, ham hocks are the best thing since the first shabbos goy tackled a pig, and ate it. But if you need porky, hammy, meaty, yummy-ness to float in your soup, then it's the ham shank you've been searching for all your life.

The night before:

If the bag of split peas that you bought reads, "soak and rinse," then do it for crying out loud. Cover with about 20 cups of water in a big pot or slow cooker. Chuck in the shanks. Simmer for hours and hours, overnight even, but at least 3 hours. The house will smell amazing. Remove from heat and let cool. The peas will be green goo and the shanks will fall apart.

Some people out there instruct us, at this stage, to chill the soup so that the fat will rise to the top and congeal into a white disk which can be removed. Those people are Philestines, but hey, Viva la différence.

Remove the shanks. On a big plate, pull the bones, fat and connective tissue from the purplish, wonder meat. Bare hands are best.

Reheat the pot. Add the meat, vegetables, sugar, cayenne pepper and simmer for 45ish minutes.

I was 30 years old before I heard the term, Roux. However I've been thickening sauces and binding soups forever. Just melt a glob of butter in a sauté pan, sprinkle in a handful of flour, heat and stir until it's smooth and gooey. Then add a ladle of your soup broth and stir some more. Get your soup on a boil and stir in your roux. Thicken to your preference.

Taste often as you season. You're looking for a mixture of salty meat/sweet veggies/spicy broth that I would gauge at 60/30/10 respectively. If you're not tasting, then you're not cooking; you're just irritating your family.

Serve with a crusty sourdough bread and stay hungry, my friends.