Julia Child’s Split Pea Soup with Ham
Julia Child’s Split Pea Soup is the best! This soup is one of my favorite things about having leftover ham. But you don’t have to wait for the next holiday ham; it can also be made with a couple of ham hocks.
It’s easy, but it takes time to make the ham stock. Try it, though, and you’ll see that it’s worth the extra time!
Julia Child’s Split Pea Soup with Ham
(Adapted from Julia Child’s recipe in The Way to Cook)
Serves 6
For the ham stock
Meaty ham bone and scraps from a ham, or 1 or more ham hocks
3 quarts water (or chicken stock)
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped celery, chopped and celery leaves
An herb bouquet: 3 bay leaves, 1 teaspoon thyme, 5 cloves tied in cheesecloth
(If you have Caphalon pots with lids like mine, you can put 3 corks under the lid handle. They fit tightly in the space, can stay there practically forever, and they give you a way to lift the lid without a potholder.)
1. Put all of the stock ingredients in a large pot and simmer, with the lid askew, for 4 hours.
2. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables and ham scraps (They have given their life for the broth.)
At this point you can make the soup, or you can refrigerate or freeze the stock to use later.
For the soup
3 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup diced celery
2/3 cup diced onions
1 cup diced carrots
3 tablespoons flour
2 quarts ham stock
1 ½ cups split peas
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Garnish: ½ cup diced ham sautéed in butter (or 1½ cups croutons)
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1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the celery, onions, and carrots and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the flour, and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes.
3. Add the stock and split peas. Simmer, with the lid askew, for 45 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Use an immersion blender in the pot to blend the soup. (I like to blend it until about half of it is blended and there are still some chunks left.) Alternatively, put some of the soup in a blender. Fill it only half full, and hold the lid on securely with a pot holder.
5. Serve with the sautéed ham (or croutons) as a garnish.
Yours is a wonderful blog which I have the lucky opportunity to discover.
The recipes are so simple and seem so delicious. I’m not a good cook
but I must try them out to surprise my wife.
However, there is one thing I must tell you. The WordPress SnapShots popups
are a real nuisance, a real pain and obstruct my enjoyment of your blog.
Hi Dale,
I’m not sure what you mean by “The Word Press SnapShots popups”. After the title of the recipe in the post you’ll see a link for (printable recipe). If you click on that you can read the recipes without the photos.
Hope you and your wife enjoy the recipes that you try.
what a lovely soup for leftover ham..I love the pic–yummy
sweetlife
Thank you, sweetlife! 8)
YUmm! I switched out the onions for shallots and the herb bouquet for Italian seasoning Thank you so much for the awesome recipe!
Thank you, Deb! I’m already looking forward to making this with our Christmas ham bone!
Thank you, this turned out so delicious! I loved the thyme in there – never would have thought of adding it myself.
I’m so glad you liked it! I think Julia Child got the seasonings just right for this one!
I am getting ready to make my second pot of the split pea soup (in two weeks) The best soup I have ever had.Had to buy another ham just so I could make it.My husband is getting sick of ham by now….there is always burger kink if he don’t like whats for dinner right? Keep up the good work and I will continue to steal recipes!!
I’m so glad you liked it, Susan!
I don’t even like pea soup and I absolutely enjoyed this recipe. I had a ham bone so I made the ham stock. I doubled the recipe. I had 10 cups of ham stock and used chicken stock for the remained 6 cups. Everyone in my family loved it
I think it’s definitely the ham stock that makes this soup so great! Thanks so much for letting me know how much you and your family enjoyed it, Christine!
I’m eager to give this a try. I usually use the recipe on the back of the package as a guide, and improvise from there. However, I got bulk peas this time, so went looking. I’d already made ham stock (minus the herbs alas). Most recipes have you cook the peas in water directly with the ham bone. The only ingredient in this recipe that I was surprised to find, and will likely leave out, is the flour. Whenever I’ve made split pea soup in the past, it was plenty thick with not flour. I suppose if you want to add that creamy starchiness, you can always add a little potato to blend in.
Nancy, I think it would probably be fine without the flour. I just checked the original recipe in Julia Child’s The Way to Cook and found that Julia says the flour is used “to make a liaison so the eventual pea purée will not sink to the bottom of the soup”.