Pea & Ham Soup is better than you

It's May, so it's starting to get cold again here in Melbsy, which is my annoying way of saying Melbs, which is everybody else's annoying way of saying Melbourne. So obviously my mind turns to warmth, because my mind is a frickin genius. And within warmth lies our biological need for soup. And within my biological need for soup lies my pathological need to not spend any money, because I don't have any money.
Luckily, soup is cheap! And satisfying. Well, it can be when you don't fuck it up. And even luckier is that it is very hard to fuck it up. Unless YOU are a fuck up. But then a fuck up fucking up the unfuckupable would be pretty much par for the course, so lets not count unhatched eggs as anything but eggs.

If you're looking for cheap, hearty and soupy, Pea & Ham Soup is all of those things. It is my absolute favourite soup in the world ever. It has all the things I need from a soup. It's thick, it's aromatic, it's meaty, it's pea-y and it reminds me of my childhood. It's a lot to ask from a soup. But there is more. It's cheap, there are only a few ingredients, some of which can be left out altogether if you want, and it will still turn a great result, and blokes will love it.

I was in ALDI. Because who doesn't love a bargain product with a similar name and font to a big name product but with a better price tag? Seriously, the doors to ALDI are a portal to a world very similar to ours but with no recognisable brands. The other day I bought some "Chazoo's" Cheesy Bacon Balls. Not Cheeto's. Chazoo's. Like the name, they were almost the same but not quite as good . Anyway, I saw Ham Hocks in ALDI so I grabbed a big one for the very good price of $3.61. Then I looked around for split peas but they didn't have any. Laptops, weights and Chazoo's Burger Hoops, sure, but no split peas. Makes sense.

In Woolies, the split peas were $1.66. (The Ham Hocks were WAAAAAY more expensive than ALDI bee tee dubs) Awesome. And as a bonus, the recipe for Pea & Ham Soup is on the back of the pea packet. It includes a bunch of other stuff like onion, carrots, celery and bay leaves which are ALL negotiable. Especially as the recipe says to do some stuff that I disagree with, like puree-ing the soup at the end. FUCK OFF.

You can cook this in a big pot or a slow cooker if you like (I went the slow cooker option because it requires less attention). Chuck the ham hock and split peas in the pot with 12 cups of water. Add a bay leaf, a chicken stock cube, a chopped onion and IF YOU WANT, I DIDNT BOTHER, 2 or 3 chopped up carrots and celery sticks. The reason I didn't bother is because I don't want to have to puree the soup at the end. It should be ready just from cooking it, fuck making more mess and delaying the eating process.

Then you can just leave it on a low heat (Low setting on the Slow Cooker) for ages and then come back and stir it every once in a while. Like, seriously 8 hours. BUT if you are cooking it in a big stove-top pot, be very careful not to leave it for too long without stirring it because the peas can burn to the bottom of the pan and then, yes, that will have fucked it up.

Then, after ages, when it resembles primordial sludge, it's ready.

It's ready.

Just remove all the ham bones and the skin, toast up some old bread, butter the shit out of it and go to fucking town.

This is a lot of soup. It freezes well but I don't recommend doing that. Just leave it in the pot and reheat as required. If you find it gets too thick and congeals, just add a cup or two of water in the reheating process and its good as gold. Good onya.

"Country Style" Pea & Ham Soup

If tinned soup has taught me anything, its that country people are too lazy to chop vegetables into small pieces. I'm OK with lazy (aka energy efficient) and chunky is good when it comes to soup. In Winter there is nothing better than coming in from the cold to the smell of a soup that has been simmering away for hours. And even better is polishing off a big bowl of steaming, chunky, hearty soup with some fresh bread and butter. My particular favourite is Pea & Ham.

Right now supermarkets are all over the hearty winter ingredients and they are cheaper than chips, which are unusually expensive given they're made of fucking potatoes and that one packet of chips contains roughly one potato which would otherwise cost you fuck-all and a pinch of chicken salt worth 2c. This soup really only has two main ingredients - a bag of Split peas will cost you $1 and Smoked Ham Hock. You can use bacon bones instead and they're about the same price per kg but they don't yield nearly as much meat, so stick with the hock. You only really need one big hock. I bought one medium sized hock for $4.38.

The split peas will have a recipe for Pea & Ham Soup on the back of the packet because Pea & Ham soup is the only recipe in the world with split peas in it except for plain Split Pea soup which even vegetarians and doomed pigs think is boring. The good news is that the packet recipe is fine. But it's better with a few amendments.

Just Three Ingredients! If you want.

For the simplest version, you can literally just use the peas, the hock and about 8 cups of water. But it can be made even more awesome with some simple extras thrown in. Instead of just water, I also like to use a little bit of stock - it adds depth. It also adds "sounding wanky" if you mention it out loud or on a blog. I also put in salt, pepper and a bay leaf. Easy. If you have a family and want to extend it or sneak some vegies into your kids, add a chopped onion and two diced carrots.

Chop It Up. Here's a photograph I prepared earlier.

Some people, including the back of the pea packet (wait, that's not people) will tell you to pre-cook the peas but this soup is best slow-simmered over a few hours so there is no way they wont be cooked anyway, so skip it. Chuck all the ingredients into a big pot over high heat on the stove until it boils. Then turn the heat down and simmer it.

It will look like a pot full of uncooked ingredients. Do not eat it yet.

Show me simmering, baby!

Simmer it for a few hours. You'll need to stir it occasionally, but just to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot. It will slowly but surely thicken and the meat will come away from the bone.

When the skin has come away from the meat you can take it out and give it to your dog, who will love you forever.

Some recipes say to take the meat out and cut it into cubes, put the stick blender in and give it a whiz or some will say to run the soup through a sieve or but I don't bother with any of it. If it has been cooked for long enough, the peas will have broken down and the meat will have fallen clean off the bones. It's extra work that you can just skip if you have time to leave it simmering away for longer. You will occasionally get small bits of bone in the soup but if that really bothers you, maybe you should just take a long hard look at your life. How do you think the pig feels? Toughen up.

A couple of hours later, when the soup looks like swamp filth, take out the bones and the bay leaves - it's  ready. It will be thick, it will be meaty and it will be awesome.

Put the win in Winter.

Hint! This soup gets thicker the longer you cook it. If it gets too sludgy, just add water to bring it back to a consistency you prefer. It also congeals when you put it in the fridge. The best thing to do is just to add a little water before you reheat it and it will come up a treat.

And was it cheap? My oath! The split peas were $1, the hock was $4.38, one onion was about 20c and two carrots at about 20c each means that my outlay was about $6. The rest of the ingredients came from the pantry (bay leaves, stock, S&P). This should feed a family of five well. Thrift!!

COMING UP - When life gives you lemons, make lemon curd. And then have it on pancakes.