Sissy, you must be desperate if you'll try the canned stuff!

Buy smoked hocks, that's what I use when/if I don't have a spare ham bone hanging around. All the hock is, is the bottom part of the ham, the thinner lower part of the leg. The shank portion of a ham is the lower back leg, the hock is the piece at the bottom of the shank, by the elbow (or is that a knee?)

So, a smoked pork hock IS ham, but be sure you get a smoked one.

Annie

IÂve never looked at a recipe for split pea soup but my ex MIL showed me how to make her version using smoked ham hocks or shanks. Just put them in a big pot cover with water add a bay leaf and simmer until the meat falls off the bone. Take the meat and bones out and after they cool get rid of the bone and fat. I put the meat in a Ziploc bag and refrigerate the stock over night so the fat comes to the top. Ex NIL didnÂt do it this way but I wanted to get as much of the fat removed as I could. After you remove the fat you are left with a really thick jelly like base for making your soup. I add diced onion, carrots, celery and the split peas that I have soaked and rinsed. Season with salt and pepper let it simmer until everything is tender then add the meat from the ham hocks. If it gets to thick I use chicken broth to thin it. You can use your stick blinder if you want to puree it but DH likes it better if I just leave it alone. Be sure to have your butcher cut through the bone of the ham hocks it makes them easier to handle.

Claudia

I've used ham hocks many times, very good.

Also, not sure if you know this but The Honey Baked Ham Company sells ham bones for soup.

Yep - I have used smoked ham hocks quite often and they give jsut the right flavor. Good luck with your soup. If I hadn't jsut made a huge pot of lentil over the weekend, I would be making pea soup too.

Alexa

I use ham hocks, 3 of them, when making a full packet of split peas. I also like kilbasa, actually the turkey kilbasa, which I cut into small hunks. I top the pea soup with croutons for a but of crunch.

Love my pea soup.

Sue

I have often used hocks or shanks for split pea. Only I don't simmer them ahead of time, I just plonk them in with the peas, water, veggies and spices and simmer away. When the peas fall apart, the hocks are generally ready to do so as well, and I take them out, let cool a bit and then strip off the meat, chop and return it to the pot.

I have also made split pea soup with smoked turkey legs or wings when those were available but the hocks/shanks were not. Actually, they made for a pretty good soup.

I have also cheated, when necessary, by using a very little liquid smoke and then just chopping up a ham steak to add to the soup. Just be careful with the liquid smoke, it is VERY strong. Try a couple of drops, mix well and taste before adding another couple of drops.

I always use a couple of smoked hamhocks because its rare i have a ham bone.

Smoked neck bones are available here too and make a very nice pea soup.

I often cheat with just liquid smoke.... no pork at all. So easy to just cook some peas/beans/lentil with and onion and a couple drops of liquid hickory smoke. If you really need some fat in the soup add a little olive oil. What it lacks in flavor complexity it makes up for in easy simple basic healthy food.

: )
lyra

Turkey or pork? The stores around here offer pork neck bones. No idea as yet what people do with them. But they aren't smoked.

As long as we're on split pea soup...chunks of vegetables or no? I like to have some diced potatoes and carrots in the finished soup along with the ham.

I start the peas with celery, onions, and carrots, which all get pureed in once the peas are done, but then add some more diced carrots and potatoes to simmer until tender before serving the soup.

The Anderson's Pea Soup restaurant out on I-5 serves their famous soup without "chunks", and it's tasty too, I just like a few veggies in mine.

Hey, thanks for all the help!
As far as chunks or no--I will take it anyways I can get it, rachelellen! Especially tonite. I feel sinus issues coming on.
partst-that recipe sounds really good. I never see any shanks, but I do see hocks. It surely doesn't look like meat to me. I will have to check to see if they are smoked.
I just don't know about the BIL of mine. I know darned well that ham sat in the garage fridge and went moldy. **sigh**

Being a part Jewish more or less vegetarian from the North Country, I don't know much about ham hocks, but correct me if I'm wrong, I think on smoked ham hocks the meat dries out from the curing, which is why it has that texture. It will soften up with the cooking in the soup, which I think is part of the charm. I know they're not super meaty but they do impart the flavor. I think the same for smoked turkey legs, which I see sometimes at the market. As for me, I use fake kielbasa and a dash of fake bacon bits, lol!

I don't use pork or ham in it at all, but sometimes I will add a turkey leg. I have on occasion added smoked turkey bacon or turkey sausage. One of the reasons that I usually make it without meat is so that I can purée it.

Lars

I use ham hocks all the time for pea soup. However, you won't be getting much or any ham from them, just flavor for the soup.

Best thing I've found for making split pea soup is smoked neck bones. They're like ham hocks, but the seem to have TONS more flavor than hocks.

I see bones as adding marrow and cartilage. The geletin that results will help a soup thicken. Marrow certainly provides a flavor element not found elsewhere. Some the most ancient tools found are marrow picks that the cavemen used to get at the marrow in bones. I've used a turkey carcass that was smoked to make soup. Small bones present a problem so I learned to boil my turkey in plain water to extract the flavor. That makes it easy to scoop out all the meat with a slotted spoon and clean the tiny bones out before adding it back with the rest of the soup stuffs. Bird legs are the worst for tiny bones... those long thin ones. Not so bad if you expect them and hunt them down. Probably one of the reasons I sometimes just add liquid smoke and say the heck with the meat. There are different types of smoke flavor to be had. Hickory is my prefered flavor... I heard mesquite is high in nitrates so I don't go out of my way to eat it.

Most just make soup. Very difficult to make a bad soup the way I see things. I'm even brave enough to use up certain leftovers. I always grab the half onion that I keep for sandwich slices... no point in letting it age further. Using up so extra spinach in my lentil soup was a big winner that became a regular ingredient. Soup also helps me control my weight which is getting to be a problem... again another reason for skipping the meat sometimes. Working men and growing children need meat/calories so meatless is not always best. When cooled meat/bone geletin will form a gray jello on top of the soup... stir it back in before the kids see or teach them that is the good stuff.

LOL... kframe got me thinking about bones and off this went. Grandma had a spagetti recipe that used pork necks and us kids called it pig-nik spagetti.

: )
lyra

I went back to the grocery store to look at those "hocks". I don't know... They don't look like something I would ever eat! They are packaged in groups of two or three. They look like knuckles or something. They also have something labeled shank pieces, which look like pieces of fat and bone.
I have tried two different brands in a can. I guess this kind of soup is hard to get right, in a can. They aren't even close to homemade.
Boy, when I do get some good split pea soup, I am going to eat 3 bowls of it!

sissyz, looks are deceiving.
Those 'hocks' make durned good split pea soup!
Especially in the absence of a ham bone.
Do as bunnyman says, cook them first in plain water.
Then strain them out, & use the water to make your soup.
You can easily pick the bits of meat from them & add it back into your soup.

Bunnyman, I was full grown before I learned that some people used recipes for soup.
In our house it was how you used up leftovers.

Rusty

Chuckling at sissyz. Yeah, those hocks are pretty gnarly looking but as has been said, just cook the hock in water for an hour and you can either look for the bit of meat in it or just give hunks to the dog for several days. Bones are great, bones are good but I've made pea soup with just the hunks of meat I took off the bone. It's not illegal and is fine to just get a ham steak and cut it into hunks and use it. Personally I am fine with no meat at all, no smoke flavoring, just the peas, onion, garlic, celery and a few carrots. Delicious to me. We made pea soup today and it will be supper soon. We used a few pieces of scrap ham from the last big ham we had.

I agree, coconut, I've made pea soup with no meat at all, or with bits of ham leftover from a ham dinner, even with bacon in a pinch.

It's all good, but I really like those smoked pork hocks and/or shanks, they're ugly but they make some great soup.

Annie

And don't forget the rye bread....pea soup, with or without ham or smoke flavoring needs a good hearty rye bread.
My late friend with the Swedish MIL used to make something she called "etavalen"....spelling it as it sounds. She was killed a couple of years back getting groceries out of her car, by someone who shouldn't have been driving. put his foot on the accelerator instead of the brake....but I digress....
Anyone else know of that soup? It was made with whole dried peas....and sort of a creamy broth...
Linda C