Pea Soup - Erbsen Eintopf

Pea Soup.


A few months ago I had bought a ham bone from one of the stalls at Kiel Wochenmarkt, it was a monster and had been languishing in Linda’s freezer ever since. She had been doing a bit of a re-formatting (nice word that) of her drawers (freezer ones) and had asked about it, I said put it out I shall make a big pot of pea soup at the weekend.

So here it is.

You shall need:

For the stock

1 ham bone (it may be from Holsteinische Katenschinken or if down South a good old Westfalisches Schinkenknocken)
A couple of onions studded with cloves and bay leaves
1 Carrot roughly diced
Green of a leek
A couple of slices of celeriac chopped
5 litres of water
Teaspoon crushed pepper corns

Bring the bone to the boil a couple of times discarding the water, (These ham bones and residual meat can be very salty). Then put the bone with the veg into a large pot with 5 litres of water (cover the bone),

bring to the boil and cook for about an hour, remove the bone ( you can shred the meat and add it to the soup, beware it can be very salty and have a strong smoky taste, some like it some don’t)

1 kg of whole dried peas, steeped overnight (or better still 24 hours)

White of 1 leek cut down the middle and chopped
2 carrots diced
Parsley root diced
1 medium onion diced
¼ of a globe of celeriac, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon of pepper corns (crushed)
1 teaspoon of dried marjoram.

There is a myth, nah, a fairy story about that you don’t add salt or seasoned stock to pulses before cooking, this is a load of poppycock, It has been proven as nonsense and I have once again done this!

Put the peas into a large pot, pour over the stock and cover with water, bring to the boil and cook until soft (it is quicker using a pressure cooker, but harder to judge when cooked). When they are just soft add the veg, pepper and marjoram, bring to a rolling boil, if too thick add some more water check that it doesn’t set on to the bottom.

When cooked, you can add some shredded ham, or cooked pieces of kassler.

I like to puree about 30% of the finished soup and then stir all together, you can add more stock or water if you wish to have a thinner soup, but I like the real rib sticker stuff!!!

Serve piping hot with fresh crusty bread (this is smashing Guy Fawkes night grub).