Split pea soup

Further to my resolution to cook more with beans and lentils, I present my much-experimented, hard-won split pea soup. I was raised on split pea and ham soup: I have many memories of my dad boiling up a ham bone to make the stock, and sauteing the mirepoix (a thing I actually don't bother doing). His soup tasted pretty good--salty, savory, comforting and filling on a winter's day.

However, I find that split pea soup is something that I tire of pretty quickly, because the texture of split peas can so easily become sandy and grainy, leaving a chalky taste in the mouth. So over the past several years, I've experimented with various add-ons to smooth out the texture and give it a better mouth feel. The ultra-smooth texture of the sweet potato balances the graininess of the split peas, the red lentils add extra softness and thickness, and the addition of a thick béchamel at the end gives it a creamy finishing touch.

Oh, and I found out something else that is pure genius: you aren't supposed to add salt to beans and lentils while they're cooking, because it can toughen them and make the finished product less soft. I had no idea! So that precludes using a homemade ham bone stock, which is a very salty thing. I used homemade chicken stock, but you could just as easily use water. I add a ham steak right at the end, and season the soup with salt once I've blended the soup and added the béchamel. (The animal-based ingredients can all easily be left out if you want to make this vegetarian or vegan.)

Speaking of flavor, I got the idea of adding allspice and thyme from an old recipe book, and I find that they give the whole thing a real depth and complexity of savoriness that you wouldn't otherwise get. However, if you're feeling really poor and hungry and don't have them, it'll still taste perfectly fine if you leave them out. Ditto the ham steak and the chicken broth. I love the flavors they provide, but good old salt is the main thing you need here, and most of us can still afford salt (just).

It's a funny thing; in the past, I used to read recipes that instructed one only to use unsalted butter and low-sodium stock, and I assumed that they writers were solicitously concerned with the health of my arteries. But now I realize that it's so that you can control the amount of salt yourself. On the rare occasions I buy chicken broth, it drives me bananas if I accidentally get the kind with salt in it. It's usually too salty, and because of that, I can't season my ingredients as I go for fear of the end product tasting like seawater. Oh, first world problems!

Last comment: I got an immersion blender for Christmas--thank you, darling husband!--and I was longing to try it out, so split pea soup was going to happen today, by hook or by crook.

Split Pea Soup

Ingredients:

For the soup:
1 cup yellow or green split peas, or a mixture of both
1/2 cup red lentils
10 cups of water, or stock: use homemade chicken broth, or, if you're buying the broth, get the kind with no added salt
2 onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 celery sticks, coarsely chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped medium
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into rough cubes
1 ham steak, cubed (optional; leave it out if you're making this vegetarian)

For the béchamel:
50 grams unsalted butter (margarine would be fine if you're making this vegan)
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup plain flour
1 cup milk, warmed

Salt and pepper

Put the split peas, lentils, water, and vegetables in a very large pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer, clap a lid on, and boil for about 90 minutes, or until the split peas are very soft. Add the ham steak, if using. Using an immersion blender, zap the soup until it's perfectly pureed. (If you don't have an immersion blender, you can whiz it in the food processor. When I didn't have either of these, during my student days, I would push the lot through a sieve.)

In a small pot, melt the butter. Add the allspice and thyme, and stir gently until fragrant. Add the flour and whisk until no lumps remain, and then start adding the warmed milk little by little to make a thick sauce, whisking constantly to avoid lumps.

Add the sauce to the soup, and whisk thoroughly to blend. Cook at a low temperature, whisking, for a few minutes to let the soup thicken. If it's too thick, add some more milk; if it's too thin, you can make a slurry with some cornstarch and milk and add it to the soup. Season generously with salt--start with a teaspoon, taste it, and keep adding more, up to about 2 teaspoons. (I know that sounds like a lot, but this recipe makes a lot of soup, so you need it.) Add pepper to taste.

Serve with toasted slices of whole wheat sandwich bread, or hunks of whole wheat-yogurt baking powder bread, or dear old grilled cheese sandwiches.

This recipe makes enough for three meals for our family of two adults and one toddler. Cooked split peas go bad quickly, so I typically eat it the day I make it and the day after that, then freeze the other third of it for another time. Because of the large amount it makes, and because of the cheapness of most of the ingredients, it's a very economical meal, super-filling, and really satisfying when it's cold outside.