Soup is one of the easiest meals to make. You cook things and mush them all around together with stock – what could be easier? But soup does not always make a meal. Well this soup is a meal. It's the shredded ham hock that makes it.
The rest of the recipe is easy as can be – the peas are frozen so you can make it any time of year – and all you really need to do is chop a few things up, cook them and then mush them all around together with a bit of stock.
Here's what you need:
900g frozen peas
180g pulled ham hock
160g bacon medallions
1 clove of garlic
75g worth of shallots
a few sprigs of mint leaves or 20gs of frozen, diced mint.
750mls of vegetable stock
65g butter
Step One: Remove your peas from the freezer. This is an important step and one I frequently forget, which leads me to having to run warm water over them in a colander in the sink. Ideally I'd remember to take them out several hours before I want to start cooking.
Step Two: Heat a large based saucepan and melt half the butter in it. Finely slice the shallots, chop the bacon into strips and put both into the heated pan. Then add the garlic, chopped, sliced or pressed. Cook for about five minutes so that the bacon is cooked but not crisp.
Step Three: Add the vegetable stock and mint leaves and simmer for five minutes.
Step Four: Remove a handful of peas and put them somewhere for later. The rest of them need to go into the saucepan now, along with the rest of the butter. Then take the pan off the heat but give it a good stir around.
Step Five: This is the mushing step. I've gotten best results using a blender, but only half of the saucepan's contents fit in at a time so if you think you're going to have the same problem you need to have another container ready. Blend for about a minute.
Step Six: Tip everything back into the saucepan to heat up. When it starts to warm, drop in the ham hock and the handful of peas and stir them in. When it's hot enough dish it up into bowls and serve with crusty bread and butter to your tastes.
This recipe makes four quite generous bowlfuls.
