How to Make Pea Soup Newfoundland Style!

An absolute family favorite amongst Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans alike is Pea Soup. Especially pea soup with smoked ham and cured Salt beef. This tried and true recipe is quite simple to make as I’ll show you in the video tutorial ; but can be a little time consuming waiting for those yellow split peas to soften but I promise its worth the wait. Patience is key.

Today I’ll show you an easier method for those of you that enjoy peas pudding with your Jiggs dinner. I always save the leftover pudding it creates the most wonderful tasting pea soup. Not to mention saves hours and hours of time. If you don’t have left over peas pudding on hand no worries you can still make it just use dry peas and put them in the beginning.

I used peas pudding made from the dry yellow split peas like here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_pea

You can buy them in almost any grocery store even on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.ca/Yupik-Organic-Yellow-Peas-Split/dp/B00NAUBLK0

This recipe also contains turnip, carrot and potato. Traditionally pea soup doesn’t contain potatoes or salt beef for that matter but my hubby loves them so we’ll be adding them as always. The potato actually balances the saltiness of the salt beef so its quite nice.

Can you believe its the 18th of January today and I actually pulled carrots from my garden for the soup. Unbelievable. We don’t have any snow on the ground today and it seriously feels like spring is just around the corner. I love it! Check it out!

We also used Salt beef Cured navel beef from Old Port they have one of the best salt beef products around as you’ll see in the video. Here’s an article on Salt beef if you are unfamiliar with it or want to know more:

http://www.terranovafoods.ca/category681a.html?id=1

Newfoundland salt beef is quite salty so if you use a large piece be sure to remove some of the stock. You can always add it back in later.

An old acquaintance of mine living in Inuvik , unfamiliar with salt beef actually tried to barbeque it. As you can imagine it was a white salty mess. too funny.

How to make this delicious tried and true pea soup!

For this recipe you will need the following ingredients:

• a bag of yellow split peas ( or left over peas pudding)
• a ham bone or some left over ham and
• a piece of cured salt beef (optional)
• 3-4 carrot diced
• a small turnip cubed ( apparently what s Newfoundlanders call turnip is not actually turnip but rutabaga.) The yellow one not the white one
• 2 small potatoes cubed optional
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 3 onions diced
• 3-4 Tbsp. butter to sauté the onion.
• enough water to almost fill your pot

Method:

Saute your onions in your butter until softened a bit. Add your ham bone salt beef a couple of bay leaves and enough water to the top about 3/4 way up. You don’t want it boiling over.

If you are using split yellow peas from the bag add them now they will take several hours to soften.

Stir every now and again making sure the peas dont stick on and burn. Very Important! After several hours (3-4) remove the ham bone and cut up your salt beef if you havent done so already.

If you are using left over peas pudding you can add it now. ( remove some of the stock just to be sure its not too salty or too runny you can always add it back to the pot later.)

Put your meat back in the pot along with any chopped leftover ham you may have and your turnip and carrot. After a few minutes add your potato if using them. (carrot & turnip take longer to cook)

I usually turn off my pot at this point as there is enough heat in the pot to cook the cubed potato.

Once your veggies are cooked ladle into a bowl and enjoy!

Some Newfoundlanders like dough boys with their pea soup the best trick I can give you here is to have your pot boiling before adding them. Not super rolling but boiling. Please watch it don’t burn on.

Should you ever have your soup burn on as many times it can happen with our busy lives. Don’t scrape the bottom it will ruin your soup simply pour out into another pot leaving the burnt behind.

Also note if you are using dry peas you will need to use only 1/2 the salt beef and will not have to remove any of the stock as shown in video 2. You will most likely have to top up the water during cooking. Please stir frequently.

If your soup tastes too salty for your liking and this applies to many many soups simply add a potato and remove before serving it will absorb some of the saltiness.

Here’s a couple of video tutorials on How to make this yellow split pea soup. Thanks for subscribing! and Thanks for watching I sure hope you enjoy!

Heres a wonderful recipe from stuffed at the gills for dough boys should you want to have them in your soup.

https://www.stuffedatthegills.ca/2018/02/newfoundland-dough-boysfluffy-dumplings.html

Thank you in advance for your donation it allows me to continue to create educational videos free of charge.