Dutch green pea soup

Famous and traditional Dutch winter dish. This is a meal replacement. Cooking time: 2hrs.

Ingredients

4 persons:
- 500 gram of dryed splitted green peas
- 2 liters of water
- 3 beef broth cubes (dried cubes to make beef broth with 1/2 liter of water per cube)
- 250 grams of smoked bacon cubes
- 500 gram beef shank (with bone)
- one large winter carrot
- one celeriac
- two leeks
- 400 gram floury/solid potatoe
- three branches of celery
- 300 gram of dutch 'rookworst' (smoked sausage which might be hard to get outside the Netherlands)

Directions

Step 1

Wash the dry splitted peas in cold water and leave them to leak dry.

Step 2

Put 2 liters of water in a large soup pan, and heat this until its cooking (100 degrees celcius). Then add the beef broth cubes and the beef shank and put it at small heat to keep it cooking. Leave it cooking for 15 minutes.

Step 3

Add the washed and leaked dry peas to the cooking water and add the bacon cubes. Leave this to cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Stir occasionally to make sure the peas are not fried to the bottom of the pan. After 45 minutes to an hour most of the peas should have mixed with the broth making it a green substance.

Step 4

Cut the leeks in rings of half a centimeter.
Clean te winter carrot and cut it in small cubes
Take two full slices of half a centimeter out of the celeriac, remove the outside layer and cut to small cubes.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1cm cubes.

Step 5

First add the celeriac cubes to the broth and let them cook with the mix for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes add the potato cubes and the carrot cubes  to the mix and leave everything to cook at least for another 30 minutes.
Keep stirring once a while and keep the bottom of the pan clean from food sticking.

Step 6

Take the beef shank out and remove the bone. Then 'split' 
the remaining meat in 'pulled beef' with two forks or so. Put the pulled beef back in the soup.

Step 7

Add the leek slices to the soup and leave them to cook with the soup for at least 15 minutes.

Step 8

Cut the leave of the celery branches in small pieces.
Cut the Dutch smoked sausage in small rings.
Then add both to the soup.

 

The mixture should now be a green solid soup in which a wooden cooking spoon could 'stand' by itself.
Flavor the soup with slat and/or pepper at desire.

Depending on your taste you can add one more beef broth cube, or add more or less of each of the ingredients when you get the hang of it.
Usually in the Netherlands we make at least 1,5-2 time the below ingredients and put the soup after cooking outside in the cold. The next day the soup is a solid mass, which we call 'snert'. take scoops out of the main pan into a smaller pan and then heat it until its warm to eat. Even better than the first day!