Potato soup with ham hock and petit pois (garden peas)
This vegetable loaded potato soup with ham hock and petit pois features the traditional potato and meat with a twist of adding the smoke flafour that is so uniquely tasty.
Place a larger pot over medium heat. Add the pork ribs together with the finely chopped leek and onions. Use a little drizzle of oil if you fancy a little frying and cook for 5 min stirring occasionally. I use a sprinkle of water instead of oil.
Add the remaining chopped or cubed vegetables (1 carrot, ½ courgette, 2 celery sticks, 2 long Turkish peppers and the roughly cut potatoes. I usually cut those into 8 or 12 chunks depending on how big they are. Allow these to cook with some salt for a further 3-4 min. Stir every minute or so.
Add the vegetable stock (or the water), the bay leaves. When it reaches the boiling point turn the heat slightly down to keep it to a nice bubbling point. Cover and cook for 40 minutes.
After the 40 minutes, uncover, add some salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. If using gammon or any salty meat you may reduce the amount of salt or add none at all.
Add the cooked ham hock, the garlic and the frozen peas. Allow to boil for a further 10 min uncovered. Add the herbs at the end and serve with some nice crusty homemade sourdough or any crusty bread.
Notes
• You may use oil to drizzle and shallow fry your onions and meat in step 1. I avoid using oil or butter in any recipes that contain meat. I just don’t find it unnecessary, but this is me. It’s not fuss but just a habit that built over the years. I do avoid frying in all my cooking as I haven’t been doing this for over two decades.• I mentioned Turkish peppers - see this recipe to visualise those - they are used to grill for BBQs - some can be a little hot too, the darker the spicier they are. Variations to this soup :• Since I have the children I feel obliged to add loads of vegetables into my food and cooking in general. If you want reduce the amount of vegetables feel free to cut out some. Just keep it as a leek and potato base, keep the carrot and the peas. Increase the amount of potatoes by adding 2-3 extra potatoes up to 300g.• The ham hock can be replaced by a good chunk of smoked or unsmoked gammon (approx 1 lb or 450-500g). I only use smoked if it’s proper smoked rather than containing smoke flavours/additives.Potato types to use : Of course this will differ and the names of the potatoes will be different depending where in the world you are.The mid starchy ones are ideal to use in this soup as you do want to mess around a little with the thickness of the soup. You could even mix the types, some really good to fall appart. A mix of floury and waxy potatoes would be ideal ;-) just to make it a little more complicated. Ha ha! Australia : Desiree or Coliban types or probably the best would be KipflerUnited States : Russet floury type vs red potato the waxy type.United Kingdom : Maris Piper and King Edward are the brilliant ones for baking and mashing, they fall apart easily vs the waxy types such as Charlotte or Anya.• if the potatoes you have used in your soup did not break slightly I recommend you smash some slightly. The difference is made by what type of potatoes you use. I use those that are best to mash like russet • if you feel a bit naughty, why not, add a dollop of creme fresh or heavy cream. Mmmm, yummm...