My Nana used to make the BEST split pea and ham soup in the world and almost every time we visited her, there was a bowl of her special soup simmering away on the stove with some delicious dumplings in it, just waiting for me.
I must have watched her make it at least a hundred times and I remember all of the ingredients as well as if she were here making it with me today. What I don’t know is how much of everything she used to add because she never used her scales to measure out the soup ingredients – it was always a bit of this, some of that and a dash of this. No matter how many times I try, I can never make my own version taste as nice as hers but I keep trying and you never know, one of these days I might get there.
My Nana never had an electric blender or a soup maker and honestly, she’d probably tell me off for wasting money on an unnecessary gadget if she was here today but I’ve tried doing it the way I remember seeing her prepare the soup and never got close so today’s attempt was a very modern attempt using the soup maker.
Nana’s split pea and ham soup
250g yellow split peas
100g red lentils
1/2 chopped onion
1 medium carrot grated
1 potato roughly chopped into cubes – it’s up to you if you peel it or not
3 rashers of bacon
Ham stock or ham stock cubes
- You really need to rinse the lentils and the split peas in some water and then leave the to soak overnight when you’re making this. I tend to pop them in boiling water and soak them after tea and then before bed I change the water and leave them overnight. I rinse them again in the morning and soak them in boiling water until just before I’m ready to cook this soup. Then I just drain them and give them a quick rinse before starting. The faff is why I don’t attempt this too often but when I do, it makes it worth it.
- When your lentils and split peas are soaked and ready to go all you need to do to make the soup is add your ingredients to the soup maker, top up with boiling water to the max fill level and select your mode – I like my soups on smooth.
I didn’t succeed in recreating my Nana’s split pea and ham soup recipe today but it was delicious so I’m OK with that for today. It was really tasty and we’ve had some for lunch with plenty left for lunch tomorrow too when it will probably taste even nicer as soup often does when it’s reheated the next day.
As well as being delicious, warming split pea soup and ham soup is such a cheap soup to make and it’s so filling that you could easily have it for tea as a main meal on a night with some crusty bread. It’s great to make with the stock from a gammon joint but you can buy ham stock cubes these days that are *almost* as good.
Making this today has made me realise that since I got the soup maker, I’ve stuck to a few of my favourite recipes because I know they’re easy and they’re fool proof but I do want to try and be a bit more adventurous so I’m going to be trying some new recipes out over the colder months so keep your eyes peeled for the next one.
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