Another family recipe, this time from the van der Wel archives. This is Dad's recipe, I'll start with what he wrote:
"If making a big batch with plenty to spare I usually have in it:
750 gms yellow split peas (I buy them at a health food place in the market in the western mall close to Gouger St because they are the freshest I have found)
750 grms bacon
750 grms bacon bones
10 debreziner (hard sausage - source is barossa fine foods stall in market)
3-4 leeks
1 carrot
3-4 sticks of celery
1-2 onion
1-2 potatoes
This quantity fills the large stock pot you bought me - from memory this is about 10 litres"
Great, thanks Dad! I don't remember how big the stockpot is - to be honest, I don't remember buying you a stockpot. Ok, maybe vaguely.
Dad's pea and ham soup is obviously not the normal English pea and ham soup... And certainly not the stuff you could float a pie in. But it's really tasty, and I think he actually normally makes it in a pressure cooker.
Which I'm going to try. I have a pressure cooker, I've had one for a few years now. I'm just not so certain I want to cook in something that's liable to explode if I forget about it. That's not FOOD under pressure, that's ME under pressure.
But then thanks to Liv, I found out about the pressure cooker/slow cooker all in one. That's my kind of thing. Means I can recycle the slow cooker to someone else (thanks for taking it, Dad!) and have a two in one combo that takes up the same amount of space. Anyone want an un-used normal pressure cooker?
Anyway, onwards. Dad forgot to tell me that he usually does the split peas and ham bones in there, and then once they're done adds all the vegetables to the stockpot and adds more water.
I put it all in the pressure cooker and then watched it, hoping it doesn't explode. I know you're wondering how long, and truthfully, I don't remember, I just used the guide from my pressure cooker.
Ah hah! According to the instructions, it was 40 minutes.
So, that's how I did it. According to Dad's spoken instructions, (ie, when I was telling him about the volcano I had in my kitchen), he does peas/bacon/bones in pressure cooker, then pours in to 10L stockpot, adds more water, vegetables and the rest of the meat. Until done. Vegetables should be very soft.
