Earlier this month I was perusing some new food blogs. I’m always amazed at how many are up and running, how many are derelict and how many new food blogs are popping up on a monthly basis. Some interest me and some I pass over. It isn’t personal, but I just don’t care much about vegetable technology tossed over … whatever it was. One caught my eye, there was a recipe from the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Railroad during the 1940s & 1950s. The first ingredient was and IS, lard. Okay, you got me. I’m interested. I’m piqued. Thank you Karen from Let’s Play Restaurant! for putting this up. Split Pea Soup? Didn’t interest me until I saw the Lard.

Man, I lucked out this time. My fridge was devoid completely of Lard. I began to spew vile hate when I realized Janet Lee had placed a terrine of lard in my freezer a week ago or so. Or was it a month?
I had everything I needed. I sped back to Karen’s site for the recipe. Yeah yeah, split pea soup is really simple. I wanted to make sure I din’t miss anything, that’s all. Here we go:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup lard
2 med. onions, diced small
2 med. carrots, diced small
2 stalks celery, diced small
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
4 cups green split peas, washed in cold water
1 gallon water
1 T chicken base
1 smoked ham bone or knuckle
1 cup cream
1 T butter
Salt and Pepper to taste
Procedure:
Heat lard in pan, add onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, garlic.
Simmer for 5 minutes (do not allow to brown). Add water, chicken base; bring to a boil.
Add peas, ham bone, salt and pepper. Simmer until peas are well done.
Check seasoning. Skim well and remove bone and bayleaves; do not strain.
Add cream and butter. Serve with buttered croutons.
Easy Peasy. Hey, oh. Sorry.
I figured using my large enameld cast iron dutch oven would fit the bill fine. Out it came and stove top it went.

If’n yer eyes are burnin’ while dealing with the dicing of the onions, place a paper towel over, works good.
And speaking of dicing, this is where your knife skills are put to the test. As with many soups, it’s really nice to get the onion, celery & carrot diced small and diced nearly the same size. This isn’t some country bumpkin stew (fried chicken that is). You want everything linear to perfection.
Get the lard nice and hot, so it looks like it swirls & moves on its own. Add those vegies & two good sized bay leaves. I used the Turkish type, warmer and not quite as brash as the grocery store variety. If you look at the ingredient list you’ll see there’s plenty of water & plenty of split peas in this recipe. I find the amount of garlic used to be way way way too little. So I tripped it.
Don’t brown the vegies, just get the onions translucent. About 5 minutes.

Smoky Ham Hock provided with care from Talor at Fatted Calf. Saturday showed up with solid rains in the morning. Taylor was there slingin’ meat in the rain, how cool is that?
Once the vegies are translucent add your gallon of water and the chicken base. I didn’t have any base, don’t think I ever have. I decided on using 3 quarts of natural chicken broff & 1 quart of cool water. Bring to rolling boil.
Add yer smoky ham hock or shank.

Uh, a word about pot size. If you’re making a soup or stew that you’ve done before, don’t sweat it. But if you’re adventuring out on a recipe you haven’t done before, just grab the largest damned pot you have.
I thought I had it. I figured the amount of liquid, the hock & the peas. Nope. I was wrong. Real wrong.
If you want to see how large this second pot is, take a look to the left there and down a bit. That’s a regular size bamboo spatula.

Now that you have an appropriate size pot, wash yer peas under cold water. Drain and install the suckers in to the rolling boiling soup.
I wasn’t interested in reducing the soup much, so the lid was put on crocked to one side. This only took an hour or so, which gave me time to clean up the mess I made, plus the extra pot. Sigh.

Once the peas are done and you have the consistency you want, add the cream & butter, stir. Lid crooked. Before serving remove bone, break up meats & pull bay leaves. While the soup rests you can make some croutons.
Cube up some bread, old is fine. Toss a good sized pat of butter in to a warming pan. Once the butter has melted toss in your cubed bread and stir and brown and stir and brown. When toasty, turn off the heat.

Serve soup in to bowl, lay unto thee thine buttery crouts.
Xo Xo
ADDENDUM:Karen noticed I hadn’t skimmed the fat, she was right. I forgot to, oh well. Oddly enough though it didn’t seem necessary for my version. I used very good home rendered lard & a top notch hock.
We’re a few days out now and it tastes GREAT the next day or two. I found I did have to add more water though, not much. Damn that stuff gets thick.