Soup’s On – Split Pea Soup

With only a few ingredients, only a little bit of time, and a very few pennies you can have a meal that tastes like a million bucks!St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner.  My family will all be gathered at the table for the traditional American celebration of the day with corned beef, cabbage, carrots, colcannon (potatoes mashed with cabbage) , Irish soda bread and this year, Guinness Ice Cream Floats and Green Root Beer Floats.

Knowing that not everyone loves the traditional St Paddy’s Day meal, I started thinking about what would make a good, tasty, hearty substitute for those who aren’t fans of corned beef.  Last year at St. Patrick’s Day we gave you some suggestions for having a St. Patrick’s Day brunch.  (Since March 17th falls on a Sunday this year, that might be just the ticket for you and your family).

While I was in the process of thinking through what this alternative St. Patrick’s meal might be, I needed to start dinner for my husband Randy and me.  I knew he would be home in about an hour and he had said in an earlier conversation that he was really in the mood for some soup.  So I stopped what I was doing, went to the cupboard and pulled out a bag of dried split peas, a couple of carrots and some bacon from the fridge, an onion from the pantry and a some chicken stock, and started making our dinner.  All the while I was still thinking about what I could write about that would make a good alternative St. Paddy’s Day celebration meal.

As I stood at the stove, about 45 minutes later, stirring the soup, I looked down at the pan, saw this thick delicious “green” soup and suddenly wondered “Is pea soup something that is a part of the Irish culture too?”  I went straight to the bookcase filled with cookbooks and pulled out a fairly new one I picked up to learn more about Irish cooking, entitled The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook.

Leafing through the pages I came to the section with soups and ‘sure and bedads and the saints be praised’, there it was in black and white being offered as Irish pub food was a recipe and photos of pea soup.

I must confess, this recipe I have for you here isn’t the one in the book.  It is the one I’ve been making for all of my married life…it’s our favorite so I don’t need to change it now.  As my Irish/German mother-in-law was fond of saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

There are lots of recipes in that book I will be trying and I will be sharing some of them along the way with you, our Chums.  But if you think pub food sounds comforting and interesting you might want to pick up a copy of this book for yourself.

In any case, whether it is St. Patrick’s Day or not, this soup is always a hit.  How do I know?  See for yourself 🙂

Serve it with a “green” salad, some of that Irish soda bread we spoke of earlier and you’ve got a hearty, satisfying, delicious, comforting meal that any Irish (or non-Irish) person could be proud to serve for supper….soup’s on!

Favorite Split Pea Soup

1 lb. dried split peas
3 carrots
1/2 onion
1 tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves (or 1-2 teaspoons crushed dried thyme)
6 slices thick cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 cups chicken stock (I prefer Better Than Bouillon)
2-3 cups water
1/2 teaspoon Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cook the bacon until crispy.  Drain the bacon on some paper towels and reserve the drippings.  In a soup pan, place 3 tablespoons of the bacon fat that you’ve reserved.  Place peeled and roughly chopped carrots and the onion in a food processor. Grind carrots and onion until they are in fairly small pieces.  Do not let this mixture go to the point of looking like baby food.  You want the carrot and onion pieces to be small but still be recognizable.

Saute carrot onion mixture with the thyme in the the bacon fat until vegetables are limp.  Add in the split peas and chicken stock and cook for about 15 minutes on a medium flame.  Begin adding water along with the Lawry’s salt and some black pepper.  Cook until peas are soft, about 30 minutes.  Puree the pea, carrot, onion mixture in your blender or food processor just until soup is nearly, but not completely, smooth.  Add everything back to the pan along with crumbled bacon.  Keep warm until ready to serve.  If the soup is too thick at this point, add more water and adjust the seasoning.  If  it is too thin, allow it to cook down a bit more until it thickens up.  Once the consistency is as you like it, taste it and adjust the seasoning.  Don’t add more salt until it is cooked down to the texture you like.  As the water cooks out and the soup thickens, the flavors will be stronger and more intense so adding salt too soon can cause you to end up with soup that is too salty.

If you should get the soup (this soup or any soup) too salty, simply cut a potato into quarters, add these to the soup and allow it to cook for about 10 minutes, then pull out the pieces of potato and throw them away.  The potato will absorb some of the excess salt and save you and your soup:)

Serve with Irish soda bread and lots of Irish butter

….you’ll feel like you’ve got some of that the ‘luck of the Irish’!