Recipe Notes: Split Pea and Ham Soup

28 January 2018

Recipe from All Time Best Soups, America's Test Kitchen, 2016, p. 163; also available online. 

This is another recipe from the new cookbook that I got for Christmas. Split pea and ham soup has long been one of my favorites. Traditionally to make this you need a leftover ham bone plus scraps of meat. However with just the two of us we never buy a large ham with a bone, so we never have leftovers for soup. Thus I was happy to find this recipe that takes a different approach not requiring a ham bone.

Two ingredients are used in place of the ham bone: ham steak and bacon. The soup is easy to make and is ready about two hours after preparations begin. Onion is cooked in butter in a Dutch oven followed by some garlic. Water (not stock or broth) is combined with the ham steak, dried split peas, bacon, fresh thyme, and bay leaves and cooked for about 45 minutes until the peas are just tender. At this point the ham steak is removed and set aside. Diced carrots and celery are added and cooked until tender, about 30 minutes. (I did this with the lid off in order to thicken the soup.) The bacon, thyme sprigs, and bay leaves are removed, shredded ham steaks are added back in (I cut the ham up instead of shredding it), the soup is seasoned (I added a little pepper), and served. 

We enjoyed this soup, both fresh and as a left over and will be making it again. It had a great consistency and flavor and was both easy and convenient to make. Two hours isn't a lot of time to invest for a soup and much of that time was hands off.