Smoked Sausage and Yellow Split Pea Soup

I’m a big fan of split pea and ham soup. The color is a little off-putting, I mean, it’s green goo with little cubes of ham. However, it’s delicious and hearty, great for cold weather, kinda warms you from the inside. My leftover spiral cut ham and split pea soup is delicious. So, in my freezer was some smoked sausage, think kielbasa links, and in my kitchen cabinet, some yellow split peas. A match made in heaven, smoked sausage and yellow split pea soup, the color is more appetizing, you gotta try it

Sausage is one of the oldest methods to process meat. It came from the need to utilize everything from the carcass. This would have been organ meat, fat, and any other leftovers, chopped, and stuffed into cleaned intestines. It was a way to preserve prior to the invention of the refrigerator. The sausages would then be dried to a degree to cure. There are references to sausage from 2000BC in Mesopotamia and 500BC from China. A blood sausage was mentioned in the Homers’ Odyssey 800BC. There’s no new technology here.

Now on to the other major ingredient, split peas. Split peas and lentils are some of the oldest cultivated plants, going back thousands of years BC. They are a nutritional power house, packed with vitamins, minerals and essential nutrients. And can be found as a food staple around the world.

In short, smoked sausage and yellow split pea soup is a very old dish that can trace it’s heritage across the globe and throughout history. But enough with the history lesson, lets get cooking.

All good soups start with a savory base, and this is no different. A mirepoix of onions, carrots and celery. Preheat a 5qt soup pan over a medium heat. This will be a one pot dish. There are a couple of reasons for this, firstly, cleanup is easier. But the most important reason is flavor retention. Everything stays in one pot, any sticky bits from the cooking process on the bottom of the pot are kept, these are important flavors.

When the pot is hot, add the oil, then add the onion and garlic. The idea is to toast the garlic and cook the onion till soft. These are the flavor building blocks of the soup, plus the essential oils from the onion and garlic will permeate the olive oil used to cook and will infuse the entire dish. Once they’re done, time to add the sausage. I cut mine on the bias, not for any particular reason, except they look good. Mix them well with the onions and garlic and allow to cook, the idea is to get a little color on them, those little burnt bits will add flavor. Cook about 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. You’ll notice that there is liquid on the bottom of the pan, this is oils from the sausage, onion juice and essential oils from the garlic, all very important flavors.

Now Add the carrots and celery, this will complete the mirepoix, the savory base of the soup. Again, I like to mix everything to coat with all the liquid that’s in the pot, give them about 5 minutes to settle. And finally the yellow split peas. Be sure to rinse them and check for little stones that make it through processing. Again, mix these well to allow the liquid to start soaking into the split peas, this will infuse some of the flavors. The mixing also breaks up any clumps, split peas like to stick together.

Now to the stock. My preference is always chicken stock, the low sodium variety, but there are options. Vegetable works well, and, in a pinch, plain water will be ok, the sausage and vegetables bring a lot to the dish, so it generates it’s own flavors. Either way, 4 cups and a bay leaf. Bring to a boil, cover, lower to simmer and cook about 1/2 hr. or till the split peas are cooked.

And there you have your smoked sausage and yellow split pea soup. Allow to cool a bit before serving, it’s hot. Thank you for reading. Serve and enjoy.