Tremendous Split Pea Soup

Prep
15m
Cook
90m
Total
105m
Bigly says
Folks. Split pea soup. SPLIT PEA SOUP. There has been a real injustice happening in kitchens across this great planet, and the injustice is this: people are out here making split pea soup that tastes like a sad green carpet. Sad. Sad green carpet soup. It's a disgrace. It's an embarrassment. The kind of thing that makes you want to throw your spoon across the room and order a pizza, and I love pizza, pizza is tremendous, but pizza is NOT split pea soup, and we're making soup today.
Now listen. I've had more split pea soup than any human being on Earth — I had people look it up, the numbers are STAGGERING, food chemists have run the math — and the real split pea soup, the GREATEST split pea soup, the one I'm about to give you, is thick, it's smoky, it sticks to the back of the spoon like the spoon owes it money. That's the test. That's the ONLY test. If your spoon stands up in the soup, you've done it right. If your spoon falls over and weeps quietly, you've made a broth, and a broth is not a soup, a broth is a SOUP TRAINEE, and we are not running a trainee program here at BiglyEats.
The secret — and most cookbooks won't tell you this, they're afraid of pork, they hedge, they suggest 'a smoked turkey leg' which is a CRIME against split pea soup — the secret is a smoked ham hock. A real one. With the bone. The bone is where the magic lives. The bone is doing more work than any single person in your office. Believe me.
Ingredients
- 1 lbdried green split peas(rinsed and picked over for any sad little rocks)
- 1 large (about 1 lb)smoked ham hock(with the bone, always the bone)
- 1 largeyellow onion, diced
- 3 mediumcarrots, peeled and diced
- 3 stalkscelery, diced
- 4 clovesgarlic, minced
- 2bay leaves
- 1 tsp, leaves onlyfresh thyme
- 2 tbspolive oil
- 8 cupslow-sodium chicken broth
- 1 tsp, plus more to tastekosher salt
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 1 tspred wine vinegar(secret weapon, do not skip)
- as neededcrusty bread (for serving)
Steps
- 1
Heat olive oil in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery and cook 8-10 minutes until softened and just starting to color.
- 2
Add garlic and thyme and cook 1 minute until fragrant.
- 3
Add the split peas, ham hock, bay leaves, chicken broth, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.
- 4
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 75-90 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes or so to keep the peas from sticking to the bottom.
- 5
When the peas have broken down and the soup is thick, remove the ham hock to a cutting board. Pull the meat off the bone, shred it, and discard the bone, skin, and bay leaves.
- 6
Stir the shredded ham back into the soup. Add the red wine vinegar and taste for salt — the ham hock varies, so adjust now.
- 7
If you want it smoother, blend half the soup with an immersion blender and stir it back in. Serve hot with crusty bread.
One more thing
This is a soup that FIXES you. You've had a long day, the world is loud, your phone is buzzing with seventeen notifications from apps you didn't even install, sad apps, sad notifications — you sit down with a bowl of this soup and a hunk of crusty bread and suddenly the world is QUIET. The soup does that. The soup is medicine. The soup is therapy you don't have to book. And it freezes beautifully, which means you make a giant pot on Sunday and eat like a king for a week. That's value. That's what we do here. Save me a piece.

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