So, the meat...do you cook that first, and if so how do you do it? Do you slice it first? And the peas...do you fully puree them or just coarsely blend them (the way I usually get it in restaurants)? Did you use a family recipe? So many questions! I can almost taste that pea soup in the picture. Mmmm.
Allow me to present a more thorough personally prepared guide for making a pea soup. Hopefully one that would make a lot of Dutchmen recall fond memories of their (grand)mothers. I will mark
ingredients and some
tips in specific colours for easier identification.
I can't tell you about the cooking of the pork meat (a guide I followed put through Google translate called it "
pork belly or shoulder chops") from personal experience as I didn't use it at all, only
smoked sausage. But I do have some tips that a friend gave me. I didn't really follow them myself as I also googled a decent recipe as well. But I just brought over a container of some of the soup I cooked to the guy and he said it looked really good. I've had his soup too, it was really top notch. Here's how you do it.
One tip to start with. During the whole time you are cooking the soup, you'll want to be sure to
stir it regularly and keep a close eye on the temperature as well. The soup can easily start to set at the bottom of the pot and if that happens there is a good chance it will eventually end up burnt.
You will need to
find a suitable type of peas. That means not fresh peas. I'm not a pea expert by the way, I don't even know if there really are differences between peas, but anyway, the type you need is
split peas. Please look at the picture below to see which I used. If you find anything that looks similar and is called split peas then it will probably be the right type. The store I found them in also had red split peas, but pea soup is supposed to be green. The bag on the picture is 500g which is exactly what I used to make the pot on the initial picture. If you're going to do a bigger pot you may want to use double the amount of peas.
Now
you need a big pot, let's say preferably at least 6 liters. It will still be good for smaller batches of course, but generally you'll want to make a large batch, especially if you're with more than 2 people. I don't actually have such a pot myself, I think the pot in the picture I posted before could hold about 3 liters. The problem is if you try to make about 3 liters of pea soup or close to that, it's going to get more difficult to keep things tidy. The pea soup will stay well for a long time after cooked when it's kept nice and cool and packed airtight, especially when frozen. If you're going to store it, pour it in containers when it is still plenty warm and let them cool off naturally for a while so they stop steaming before sealing them airtight. Then let them cool down on their own a bit longer before placing them in the freezer. It is quite easy to unfreeze it and heat up too. All you'd have to do is take it out the freezer, put it in a pot with some amount of water that seems appropriate for the amount of frozen soup, put it on a high fire, turn down the heat when the soup starts melting, be patient a bit and stir once it becomes possible, keep stirring now and then, if it takes too long turn up the heat a bit more now and then and you'll know when it's ready. If the soup gets very thin then you'll have to keep on it until an appropriate amount of water has evaporated so the soup can thicken up a bit.
You really don't want your pea soup runny like a broth. Your spoon should not be capable of standing up in it either. You'll find a suitable thickness to your liking as you go. I recommend trying to get it to drip of a spoon a bit like a syrup or oatmeal or perhaps a little bit smoother. The soup will actually still be getting thicker as you are eating it. Another thing you might wanna know about making this soup is that
you may want to soften the split peas up before using them by keeping them in a container with water for a while. I think keeping them as such for at least half a day would probably be a good way to go, or perhaps even 24 hours. I don't know if it would be better to do it in the fridge or out in the open. I would suggest not using the water you softened the peas in for the soup. I must note that I didn't actually soak the peas when I made it myself, that's a reminder I received from my friend when I called him for advice after I had already gotten started. Beasides soaking the peas upfront you may want to also prepare some other things.
Peel and dice a couple of
potatoes and
celeriac according to the amount of soup you want to make. You don't need a lot of potatoes but don't be stingy. I would say about at least two slightly larger than average potatoes, or even a bit more if you're making a really big pot. As for celeriac I suggest cutting up a whole one of a fair size and then eyeballing how much of it you'll want in your soup.
Both ingredients will serve to give the soup a thicker body. Don't make the chunks too big, you'll want them to be able to dissolve a little in the soup. Though on the other hand I kinda like to have some small pieces of potato left (non-dissolved) by the time the soup is ready so you may want to include some slightly bigger chunks as well. As for how to process a celeriac the following video might be useful.
Put
water for however much soup you wanna make into a pot including a few
beef bouillon cubes and
vegetable bouillon cubes and then heat it to boiling point.
NOTE: If you're going to use the pork belly or shoulder chops use a bit more water, put the meat in straight away and add a bit of salt. You'll want to cook the meat for about 45 minutes and then cut it up into small pieces before adding any of the other ingredients including the peas. Keep in mind that you're going to add a lot of vegetables too. If it is the first time making this soup, I would suggest imagining how much soup you want to end up with in the pot so that you're certain it won't spill over when preparing it and then putting in enough water to about the halfway point. Consider that the other half will be filled with vegetables and that they will displace the water. When the water has reached the boiling point, put the
split peas in it. My friend suggests putting in the
potatoes and
celeriac soon after or pretty much right away so that they can both soften up at the same time as the peas and help make the soup thicker, that's why I suggested preparing those ingredients beforehand. While these three things are boiling,
keep stirring every now and then and in the meantime start cutting up some of the other ingredients. Once the ingredients start visibly dissolving well, turn down the heat so that the soup is just below boiling point or perhaps even a bit lower still. Keep stirring now and then until the initial ingredients are mostly dissolved and you can feel that the soup is starting to slightly thicken up. Then start adding other ingedrients either one by one as you cut them up or all at once if you have them all prepared already. I did the latter. You'll want to be sure that all ingredients get the chance to cook at least 20 minutes I would say but preferably longer. It would be best if this has happened before the soup reaches it's final ideal viscosity. If it gets too thick you could theoretically add water to thin it down a bit but try to avoid having to do so because that water would not be brought to boiling point and thus perhaps not be "sterilized" enough for the purists. Here's a list of the other ingredients you'll have to include. As far as I'm concerned, you can estimate the amounts according to your own judgement. I'm going to assume that you are already aware how to "process" these ingredients.
- leeks cut into rings
- winter carrots sliced julienne or finely diced
- stalk(s) of celery cut into half-rings
- onion sliced in your preferred style but not too finely
- bacon cubes (optionally)
When the soup is nearly ready you'll want to be sure you have prepared the
smoked sausage. Please don't think of the sausage as an optional thing,
it is truly an essential ingredient. The packaging of the sausages I got said to just prick through the foil and microwave it for a short while, but you could probably also cook the sausage in boiling water instead. Perhaps that would even be the preferably way to do it, but that would take longer so you would have to make sure you time things appropriately.
When the soup is at its preferred look and feel you do a final tasting to see if you want to add salt and/or pepper and you can then add some (perhaps a hand of) chopped
fresh parsley. At this point add the
smoked sausage and stir it all through one last time before serving.
Bon appetit!
Traditionally the soup is served with some kind of bread, for example sliced baguette. Some people say it goes down well with a full bodied red wine.
Hope you'll enjoy.