Thread: Pea and Ham Soup Recipes

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello All,

What amount of peas do you use in your pea and ham soup recipes?

A couple of weeks ago I followed the pea and ham soup recipe on the McKenzie’s Green Split Peas packet which called for the full 500 grams to be put into the mix. The result was this mucilaginous glue like paste of pea that totally overwhelmed the ham. I use a combination of bacon bones and a ham hock. Mostly because butchers seem to be reluctant to keep much meat on the bacon bones.

I used to love the pea and ham soup that an English friend served me once. The peas and the ham seemed to balance each other very well. It also included a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice to cut the fat taste down. The McKenzie’s recipe was just pea - pea and some more pea with a skerrick of ham.

In a related question ... do you use split peas or the whole pea like the blue boilers that pies are accompanied with? If so is there any difference between the volume of whole peas compared to split peas used in your pea and ham recipe?

I would appreciate other people's input on what makes a good - well balanced pea and ham recipe. Yes - the 'pea' being the first name listed in the meal's description is a bit of a give away! No, it is not called 'ham and pea' soup ... more is the pity :0)

Postscript: I found an online recipe from 'Great British Chefs' that only uses 250 grams of peas - accessed 25th July 2023 from, Pea and Ham Soup Recipe - Great British Chefs. This is half the amount that the McKenzie recipe describes. Another 'English' recipe is available from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's traditional British soup recipes | Soup | The Guardian and they only use 200g green split peas. The proportion of the other ingredients between recipes seems to be pretty constant. Going back to an Australian source - Maggie Beer uses 500 grams of split peas ... Pea and Ham Soup | Maggie Beer | #cookwithmaggie: Maggie's Kitchen Diary | Maggie Beer. The main variation between different recipes seems to be the amount of peas. Which amount split or whole peas do you prefer in your recipes?

Kind regards
Lionel

Sorry Lionel I can't help with the recipe but your post brings back some good memories. One of Adelaide's Pie Carts was outside a Shell SS on our Norwood Parade.
It was an old Horsedrawn cart Gypsy style & the horse was tied to a power pole adjacent to the cart & was happy to munch on a bag of chaff all evening while customers did the same with Pie Floaters (an upside down meat pie in a bowl with oodles of Tomato sauce on top. Vinegar added at customers request.)

Was there for years but disappeared when some crowd built a Theatre on the spot. #^#*^%@!*&% this was most welcome after Sea Scout's meeting on a Friday night.


Adelaide had three other Pie Carts 1x Adelaide Railway Station 1x GPO & the other escapes me for a mo. There may have been others but I don't recall any.

All levels of Adelaide Society rocked up for a Floater & a Stonie Ginger Beer including Politicians & other famous faces would have some interesting discussions while leaning on the counters.
Then it was on to the CZ & BSA Compo & headed for home.


Ah Happy Days.

Good luck with your Pea search.

Originally Posted by 4bee

Sorry Lionel I can't help with the recipe but your post brings back some good memories. One of Adelaide's Pie Carts was outside a Shell SS on our Norwood Parade.
It was an old Horsedrawn cart Gypsy style & the horse was tied to a power pole adjacent to the cart & was happy to munch on a bag of chaff all evening while customers did the same with Pie Floaters (an upside down meat pie in a bowl with oodles of Tomato sauce on top. Vinegar added at customers request.).............

I liked the Pie Floaters but most people I've mentioned them to up here don't know what I'm talking about. The closest thing I've had up here is from the famous Yatala Pies where they will put a scoop of peas in the top of a pie instead of mash potato.

Hi,
Some of my fellow recruits at RAAF Edinburgh came back from weekend leave in Adelaide with much praise of their new find, the pie floater. It sounded gross.
It was 20 years later, enjoying some pea and ham soup with a meat pie on a cold day at home, that it dawned on me that it mattered little whether the pie was on a side plate or or in the bowl of soup.
Cheers

I use the recipe on the back of the McKenzies packet and it's great - I don't recall it being that thick and I make it all the time - I usually do a double batch and chuck in 2 ham hocks and then a small ham off the bone in the mix to give it more hamminess.

I have fond recollections of pea and ham from my youth. Like Lionel I have found that the Mackenzies recipe generates very large amounts of pea material that does not remind me of "the good old days" . I suspect that the bacon bones you get from supermarkets today are devoid of much meat and that this may have changed the balance. I remember nagging mum to buy bacon bones for me to eat and they had significant enough amount of meat on them to be able to snack on, this isn't the case anymore.

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Tote

I have fond recollections of pea and ham from my youth. Like Lionel I have found that the Mackenzies recipe generates very large amounts of pea material that does not remind me of "the good old days" . I suspect that the bacon bones you get from supermarkets today are devoid of much meat and that this may have changed the balance. I remember nagging mum to buy bacon bones for me to eat and they had significant enough amount of meat on them to be able to snack on, this isn't the case anymore.

Regards,
Tote

Hello Tote,

Yes, the decided lack of meat on bacon bones was the reason I added a ham hock to the recipe. The other thing to note - the current cost of ham hocks [insert suitable profanity here] !

Kind regards
Lionel

Hello All,

The talk of the South Australian delicacy of a pea floater - since realising that I was a coeliac the availability and quality of gluten free pies has been pretty underwhelming. Even more so that some gluten free bakers have gone more boutique and have all these different flavours - at the expense of stocking the basic meat pie. You know the sort that 'normal' people can buy from their bakery. The other thing that the boutique bakeries do not cater for is mushy peas. In Queensland the lid of the pie is lifted off and some mushy peas are added on top of the meat. So the chance of gluten free pea floater being made in a South Australian bakery would be just about zip. I would have to track down a gluten free baker and then supply my own pie to the pea floater seller. They would probably tell me to sod off.

Hmmm... if the serving utensil that gets dipped into the mushy pies touches the non-gluten free pie then the whole pea pot could be cross contaminated ... sigh.

Kind regards
Lionel

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello All,

The talk of the South Australian delicacy of a pea floater - since realising that I was a coeliac the availability and quality of gluten free pies has been pretty underwhelming. Even more so that some gluten free bakers have gone more boutique and have all these different flavours - at the expense of stocking the basic meat pie. You know the sort that 'normal' people can buy from their bakery. The other thing that the boutique bakeries do not cater for is mushy peas. In Queensland the lid of the pie is lifted off and some mushy peas are added on top of the meat. So the chance of gluten free pea floater being made in a South Australian bakery would be just about zip. I would have to track down a gluten free baker and then supply my own pie to the pea floater seller. They would probably tell me to sod off.

Hmmm... if the serving utensil that gets dipped into the mushy pies touches the non-gluten free pie then the whole pea pot could be cross contaminated ... sigh.

Kind regards
Lionel

When we school kids were on the way home & passed a "Servwell" grocery shop
we would stick our heads through the door & Yell out }"Got any bacon bones today?" Invariably the reply was positive so we were given a heap of bones & we sucked the meat off them b4 Mum got them.
This was in the late Nineteen forties, so not all that long after the Great Depression so the grocers were quite generous in handing those over to "poor starving kids" a carryover & generosity from those dark days.

Apologies Lionel for getting off topic a tad.