So continuing last weeks’ saga of the ham bone, I left that boiling on the stove for the week.
Well, not the whole week. Maybe a couple days. And generally left it sitting on the stove otherwise. I boiled it once more this morning, just in case it was breeding cooties.
I soaked the split peas since the morning. I meant to do it overnight, but I forgot. I’m really not a soaker, in the bean-soup wars, I prefer to just toss them in and go. If you soak them, it does reduce cooking time, which is nice.
Split pea soup is tasty stuff–it’s about one of the only recipes I’ve taken from my mom that I like (the other being lasagna). It’s also dirt cheap–I added up the ingredients, and it was roughly nothing–I already had the ingredients, and was wishing that the peas in the freezer would go away, potatoes that needed to be used up sooner or later, and a half-dead onion. Realistically speaking, it was roughly $5, or possibly more if you follow roommates suggestion of using a tad more ham mentioned below.
Ingredient list:
- A huge amount of green and yellow split peas
- An almost-dead onion
- One leek
- Half bag of carrots
- Half a turnip
- A small tupperware container filled with precooked chopped ham
- Oregano, thyme, pepper, salt, and probably something else I’m forgetting
No garlic? No garlic, I would typically use a huge amount of garlic, but I’ve done that in the past, and it makes everyone reek of garlic for days. I chopped the onion and leek, threw it in the boiling pot. Tossed the peas in until they turned to mush, stirring constantly. This takes some time–about two hours–and you need to stir with regular frequency to prevent the soup from sticking to the bottom. Towards the end, I chopped up the carrots, potatoes, and turnips, and tossed them in. I actually had got this all done well in advanced enough that I turned it off and worked on the other foods.
I particularly skimped on the ham. See, that’s what happens when you let the vegetarian cook! The ham lovers in the audience added more, and said it was tastier with much more ham. One person had a bowl filled with ham, and just poured some soup on top.
For the cumin potato salad, I used a recipe I’ve had for some time now. It’s basically roast some cumin on a pan. Then grind the cumin, add enough oil/vinegar to potatoes to make sure cumin gets everywhere, and stir. You could probably do this with other foods, like eggs (and I commonly use eggs) or maybe even make a “oil and cumin” type dressing, the way oil and mustard dressings are popular.
- Potatoes (about enough to feed four)
- Carrots
- Two hard boiled eggs
- A (measured) teaspoon of whole cumin
- A (measured) teaspoon of whole coriander seeds
- Two peppercorns, because last week someone said one wasn’t enough
- Enough olive oil to mix everything together
To make this, roast the spices on a stove, with no oil. I miss my cast iron pan, because doing this with other pans isn’t quite the same. After the cumin smells cooked and is slightly brown, toss it into the grinder. Boil the potatoes and eggs (separately) and chop them up small, and chop the unboiled carrots very small. Mix everything together with olive oil, until everything is well coated. Normally I would use tomatoes instead of carrots, but I didn’t have any today.
The hard part in this making sure the proportions are correct. Here I think I used too much cumin/coriander compared to potatoes. My original recipe said “makes enough to feed four”, which I think is about how much I actually made. Fortunately my vast eaters did not in fact show (I expected ten, and only four showed up) so there was plenty. I still think this one is tasty, however, others were not as appreciative as I was.
Perhaps I should have shown the bowl before people devoured, instead of after.
And, for the curry. This was a slightly bold recipe, and I followed it from a book exactly. Wait, let me quantify that “exactly”, I followed the directions exactly, however, I used varying ingredients. In fact, at some point I looked at my counter, said “this is what I have”, and looked at the recipe, and said “well, how different can it be?” It came from a book entitled “Spicy Vegetarian Feasts” and was labeled as “Braised Vegetables in a Cardamom Nut Sauce”. Things I was missing included onions and ginger and green peas and I’m not sure what else.
The ingredients were something like:
- One habanero chili (the recipe was written for an english audience, we use chilis, not peppers)
- One serrano chili (the recipe called for “one very spicy green chili”)
- One cup of yogurt
- 12 24 green cardamom pods
- 24 12 cloves (I got the amounts backwards from the original recipe)
- A cinnamon stick
- Two cloves of garlic
- Two pounds of potatoes, chopped small
- Half a turnip, chopped small
- Some remaining carrots
- A zucchini
- Half a thing of spinach
- A few string beans
The book says put the potatoes and turnips in a bowl of water and let soak while doing everything else. Okay….
I threw some olive oil into the pan, with the garlic, chillies, cinnamon stick, cardamom, and cloves. “Add two spoonfuls of yogurt, and let the yogurt boil down to nothing, and repeat, until that cup of yogurt is gone”. As I’m doing this, I’m thinking to myself, “am I making cheese?” 
“Then, throw in the potatoes and turnips, along with a cup of water”. I throw in the potatoes and turnips, and put enough water to submerge them all. I let the water cook until it’s not there any more and the potatoes and turnips are cooked. I throw in the spinach and carrots and zucchini and just a hair more water and let it cook long enough for the veggies to cook.
I carefully warned everyone “this is a cardamom pod, don’t eat it, this is a clove, don’t eat it, you all know what a cinnamon stick looks like, don’t eat it”. So who was the one chewing on a cardamom pod wondering why it was way way over cardamomed? Yours truly, of course.
It was tasty enough if you were careful enough not to bite any of the pods or cloves. Of course, they were mixed in well enough, so we all did, and everyone said it was way too spiced. The habanero and serrano didn’t really show through at all, or at least I didn’t taste them at all. If I were to do this, I would remove pods, cloves, and cinnamon stick before adding anything else. Otherwise, they get far too in the way of enjoying this.
Next time I try this, I’ll follow the recipe a little closer–with ginger and onions and no spinach but with green peas peas and I’m not sure how many other variations I made. It was tasty, but I would say it was over cardamomed, another eater said it was over cloved, and another said it was her favourite.
The fortunate side of getting four when you expect ten is now I don’t have to cook for the rest of the week. Woo! They better get used to cardomom breath at work! Someone better help me eat some of this soup, as it takes up a huge amount of space in the fridge!
I’m getting better with the photos–but it’s still not on top of my mind. There are no photos of completely made soup or curry.