Mike van de Elzen: Pea and ham soup with cheesy toast

Pea and ham soup with cheesy toast 

Cook time: 60 minutes 

Prep time: 10 minutes 

Serves: 6 

1 smoked pork hock  

1 carrot, peeled and quartered  

1 onion, peeled and quartered  

2 bay leaves  

1 ltr chicken stock  

1 ltr water  

2 cup green lentils  

½ tsp Salt  

¼ tsp white pepper 

Gruyere toast  

8 slices ciabatta  

4 tbsp Dijon mustard  

100g tasty cheese, grated 

Place all the ingredients in a large pot with a lid. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. Top up with more liquid if it becomes too dry.  

Remove the bay leaves and discard.  

Remove pork hock and set aside. Blitz the soup until smooth.  

Pick the meat from pork hock and add into the soup.  

Serve soup hot with tasty cheese toasts.  

For the toast Spread Dijon mustard over ciabatta slices then top with grated tasty cheese. Place under a hot grill until cheese is golden and bubbling. 

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News talks'b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining me now a resident chef, Mike vander Alsen.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Are you busy out on the land on the farm.
It's a bit chilly because we're pathetic Orcander, So it
suddenly blows through and we go criaking. This is miserable,
which it's pretty normal for most of the Zealanders.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, I think anyone north of the Bombay might be
potentially feeling a bit colder than the people south of
the Bombay.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
It's fair enough.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
It's been it's been chilli and and this week we've
been outside or I've been outside just cutting all the
trees off, all the fence lines, and I tell you,
it comes through. And I had like two Swan dryers on.
My problem is I, and I fully admit it is
I don't wear long pants.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm always you're in the short Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
So no matter how many layers of Swan dry as
I put on, you can't stop that cold breeze from
shooting up, Yeah, shooting up the shorts and turning legs purple.
So I s we need a winter warmer today, we
need something that we could put on and we can
all spend it because it's a beautiful day outside today.
We can all spend it outside doing our gardening, clipping

(01:24):
some edges, and then come in tonight to a delicious
warming dish. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
And it's a good time of the year to be
talking about the slow coocker because there's nothing better than
getting to the end of the day and go that's
sort of something yummy has been brewing all.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Day, I know. And this is where like dishes like
this is where slow cookers kind of come into their
own and coming to their own strengths. Because with a
slow cooker, it's long and slow, so there's not a
lot of evaporation that's going on unless you like, if
you crank it up, yes maybe, but if you put
in all the ingredients, you turn it onto high for

(01:58):
like an hour, and then you turn it down to low,
you could pretty much walk away knowing that's what's in.
There's going to be the same as when you come back.
It's not going to evaporate and burn onto the bottom.
So I thought I'd do a dish which was our
favorite family dish when I was a kid. It's a
dish that Mum used to always make. And it's a
Dutch pen ham suit and when Mum made it it

(02:19):
was so thick you could stand a spoon up in
the center of it. All right, yeah, and I've just
chat I've changed it up a little bit by serving
with some cheesy toasts. So penhm soon, easy piece. You
go down the supermarket get a smoked pork cock. They
really available all the flavors in that pork for you already,

(02:39):
it's already been done for you. So into a slow
cocker or a pot of You haven't got a slow
cooker chucking your pork cock. I've got a carrot that's
been peeled and quartered, onion that's been peeled and quartered,
two bay leaves, a lead of chicken stock, a lead
of water, two cups of the all important peas. So
you've got two cups of green lentils. I've got half
teaspoon of salt and caught a teaspoon of white pepper.

(03:01):
Pop all them on like I say, turn it on,
crank it up to and to start with it. After
an hour, just turn it down and let it do
it sing on low. You can leave that slow cooker
going for six hours on high. You probably want to
check it after about four hours. After this time, take
your poorcock out. Try carefully pull it all out as
one unit as you can, because what you're going to

(03:21):
do now is shred all that meat off that bone,
including the skin. Some people like the skin, so you
can set aside of the skin aside, and then maybe
finally slice it up and add that back in, or
if you don't want the skin, just add your meat
back in and then serve that with a I've got
like there's a gray year toast or cheesy sort of toast,
So just take a cheer bar to bun, slice it,

(03:44):
butter it with some dish on mustard, and then put
it either put some gruy your cheese on there, or
if you've just got some tasty cheese, just grate some
tasty cheese, buy them into the oven under the grill,
and and toast them until the nice and bubble, and
then serve them alongside your your delicious winter warming pen
hand soup.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh sounds great, So have you got that off?

Speaker 3 (04:05):
What tis like? Over? That's to me what happens.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
I talked to you like I talked to you, and
I'm just imagining that some for some reason, someone at
home is listening to this, going, gosh, what a great idea.
I'm going to get that sort of tonight, and when
I get home it's kind of all, you know, it's
already done, but never mind. Thanks so much, Mike, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio