Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup
This is a classic and basic split pea soup. Excellent and very easy to prepare in a sow cooker. Lots of instruction photos that I took while making this.
Ingredients
- 500 grams split peas, dry, no need to soak, just rinsed is fine
- 6 cups chicken stock, homemade OR make from powder
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1/2 stalk celery, diced, if using Thai celery, several stalks diced
- 1/2 red bell pepper, diced, optional
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 small ham hock, OR one ham bone, OR 2 cups of chopped ham, OR omit
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- I bought a large ham hock in Tesco, called a pork side leg. Looks like a hock, and it is pre-cut through the bone in 4 places. The tape measure is in inches, this thing is huge, and only 120 Baht, weight is about 1 1/2 kilos. I only used about half, the right 3 sections for the soup, so the cost was only 60 Baht, my wife used the left 2 sections for a Thai soup.
- Add the hock to the slow cooker pot first.
- Then add the rinsed split peas around the hock.
- Add your diced carrot on top.
- On top of the carrot, add the onion, bell pepper if using that, garlic, celery, spices and bay leaves.
- Pour in your chicken stock, place the lid on and cook on High setting until split peas are creamy and pureed. Check the peas at 4 hours, when the peas are cooked, they will be soft and will puree on their own by simply stirring them, if not soft, check again at 5 hours, etc.
- At the 4 hour mark, use a meat thermometer to check the temp in the hock, if it is cooked through, remove the hock to a plate, remove the skin and fat then roughly chop the meat and return the meat to the pot and stir that in. This cut of meat has a lot of fat, so you will need to skim that off the surface of the soup from about the 4 hour mark onwards.
- When the peas have pureed for the most part and the pork is cook, chopped and added back, turn the slow cooker down to Warm setting, discard bay leaves and you are ready to serve.
Notes
Note about the meat added, I used 1/2 of a large ham hock but this is also very fatty (make sure you skim the fat at times during cooking). Another option is to use a meaty ham bone, or add 2 cups of cubed cooked ham. I also think a pork knuckle would be ideal for this but is also pricey.
Going with 1/2 of a large hock, cost was 60 Baht, the split peas were 56 Baht/500 grams, all the rest is minimal. The cost is about $0.60 cents per person for 6 meals.
An alternative would be to use chicken, I know, the Split Pea Soup haters are going to hate me for saying this, but 2-3 meaty chicken thighs, in place of the pork, I think would work wonderful.
Adapted from an internet recipe.