pea and ham soup

Nagi Maehashi’s pea and ham soup is thick and savoury, with split peas absorbing flavour from a meaty ham hock. Her selected slow-cooker version uses water as the broth base, allowing the ham to season it during cooking.

Green split peas, the ham hock, garlic, bay leaves, onion, carrot and celery go straight into the cooker with water, salt and black pepper. The onion is not separately fried first.

Long cooking softens the peas and makes the ham easy to shred. The hock is lifted out, with its bone and fatty skin removed before the meat is returned to the soup.

The bay leaves are also removed. Maehashi partially blends the soup to thicken the broth while leaving some pieces of pea and vegetables, then stirs the shredded ham back in and adjusts the salt.

Parsley finishes the bowls, with crusty bread served alongside for dunking. Maehashi describes extra ham or stock powder as adjustments for an inadequately meaty bone, keeping those conditional additions separate from the selected meaty-hock preparation.