Urgent Pea & Ham Soup Help Please

[ComradeJing]

I bought a salted ham hock and soaked it overnight. Put it in the slow cooker with sautéed onion, carrot & celery and split green peas as per the AWT slow cooking book. It's had 6 and a half hours on high and it is not what I was expecting.

The broth and veg are delicious but the split peas have really held their shape and are still a bit... I don't know... grainy? The ham isn't falling off the bone as I expected either.

I probably put 200ml less water than he did and about 100g extra lentils as I just wanted to finish the bag.

I'd really like to go to bed as it's 10:30 here. Shall I keep cooking it for longer? Will it get better? Right now it's bits of veg and lentil suspended in broth.

Have you tried liquidising it (possibly without the ham hock)?

It is a slightly grainier texture than lentil soup though, IME.

Doesn't sound like the peas are cooked. Did you soak them? They will be soft when done. Can't really comment on the ham.

Ok, so it's not that urgent but I'd quite like to go to bed before midnight. :o

I didn't soak them! Agh! Was I meant to? It didn't say so in the bloody recipe.

I haven't dared to liquidize it as the peas definitely aren't soft soft.

Ferk... Im going to be up for another few hours aren't I? Or can I put it in the fridge and finish it tomorrow?

Yes, you should soak them overnight really, then give em a good hard boil for 10 mins before adding to the rest of the gubbins.

I'd do a test liquidise with a bit of it and see what happens.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Ok. I'm going to stick it in the fridge and look at it again tomorrow.

Thank you :)

You are supposed to soak them, although I don't always - but have to cook them for far longer then. Not sure how long that would be in a slow cooker. Could you not leave it on low all night? Pretty sure you couldn't overcook pea and ham.

Btw, it sounds nice!

Do you think I could just leave it on? It wouldn't go revolting?

I don't see why it would. The peas might go to mush, but that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Salt can make pulses stay hard, so if the ham was v salty this may be the problem?

Hmmm... could be the problem Work. It was done by the German butcher here but I'm never quite sure if whatever they are doing is what we would do in the UK so could be saltier than expected.

Right, I'm leaving it on and going to bed.

Well let us know how it turns out! God, how sad am I.

Don't worry, I had planned to :o

Another Saddo here -Just checking in to see how it turned out !

Right. In the end I just stuck the whole thing in the fridge overnight. This morning I pulled out the ham hock then put the peas & veg & broth stuff on to the hob, boiled it for 3 mins then put it back on the slow cooker for probably another two or 3 hours on high. It's now deliciously soft and mushy. I did boil a potato though and add that as I thought it was a little thin.

Thanks all for the advice. :)