Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Horseradish 2023

 Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Horseradish 2023

We are experiencing a bit of a Polar Vortex here in the Martimes. It is the coldest it has been all winter and I believe much colder than it was last Winter.  We need to be taking great care against frost bite when out and about and wearing our woolies!

Thank goodness for central heating, well insulated homes and, dare I say it  . . . hot bowls of soup!  Yes this is soup weather!!

This delicious recipe Pea Soup Recipe is a recipe that I adapted from the New York Times cooking site, by Sarah DiGregorio.  You can cook it in the slow cooker as I have done, or you can cook it in a pressure cooker.

It is delicious either way and obviously it cooks a lot faster in the pressure cooker. In the slow cooker it will take 8 to 10 hours, in the pressure cooker less than an hour. It all depends on how quickly you want it done!

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE SLOW COOKER SPLIT PEA SOUP

with horseradish cream

Very simple ingredients for the most part. There is a bit of white wine called for, but you can easily substitute it with water or more stock, if you don't have any.

• 3 TBS light olive oil
• 1 brown onion, peeled and minced
• 3 celery stalks, trimmed and chopped
• 1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
• 5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 dry bay leaves, broken
• fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 smoked ham hock (about 1 pound/453g)
• 1 pound (453g)of green or yellow split peas
• 5 1/4 cups (1.3 liters) chicken stock or water
• 1/4 cup (60ml) dry white wine (if you have none, you can use extra stock or water)
• 1 TBS fresh lemon juice

For the horseradish cream:

• 1 cup (120g) dairy sour cream
• 2 TBS jarred drained horseradish
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

If you don't have a ham hock, feel free to use a ham bone.  That is what I did. I had a nice ham bone in the freezer leftover from New Years. It had plenty of meat still on it and the bone imparted a lovely smoky flavor to the soup.

You can also leave out the ham hock, or ham bone and just use cubes of smoked ham. Or, for a vegetarian version, leave the ham out altogether, and the chicken stock, and just use a good vegetable stock and increase the smoked paprika by 1/2 tsp.

One of the readers on the NYT site used parmesan rinds instead of ham and said it was delicious. I do admit I wish that I had thought of that myself!

You can use either yellow or green split peas for this, or a combination of the two.  Yellow and green split peas are a favorite world wide. Not only are they cheap to buy, but they are nonperishable and filled with loads of nutrition!  I love them in any way shape or form.

My mom always made pea soup using whole yellow peas and that was also very good. It was the French Canadian style of Pea Soup

Nothing could be simpler.  This is such a doddle.

You will need a 6 - 8 quart slow cooker/crockpot. Combine the oil, onion, celery carrot, garlic, smoked paprika, garlic powder, thyme, broken bay leaves, 2 tsp of salt and a really generous grind of black pepper in the bowl of the slow cooker.

Add the ham hock, split peas, stock and wine. Cover and cook on low until everything is tender, about 8 to 10 hours.

Pick out and discard the bay leaves. Remove the ham hock to a bowl and pull the meat from the bones, using two forks. Return the meat to the pot. Stir in the lemon juice and then taste the soup and adjust seasoning as necessary.