Winter happiness and Pea Soup

Obviously winter has fallen down here in Groningen. Lots of snow this week made sure that we need to face it: wintertime. All Dutch media tell us happily were to go ice skating, who has built the highest snowman and what so ever and what Dutch winter dish should be on the menu tonight. The fact that there is no traffic possible in any way does not make the winter happiness any less.

In this winter hype the Dutch experience I need to confess: I am a lousy Dutch girl. I don’t like the snow, I don’t know how to ice skate, I think spicy food makes you warmer than Dutch winter dishes and I have no idea how to manage biking in this mass of snow. It is getting this worse that I am even looking forward to the rain coming back and letting the snow disappear.

After a good talk with my best friend, who loves all this kind of winter happiness, I decided that I would give it a try. Wintertime can be quite romantic I told myself. So I looked for the best snowshoes I had in my closet, made proudly a wonderful snowman and even went to buy ice skates, but they did not have my size anymore L. After all this winter action I figured I got hungry. So in the Dutch afternoon I was having, I decided to have a Dutch winter dish for supper: snert (pea soup).

Than I had a problem, as a student I usually cook the meals that are prepared really fast, and the pea soup does not fit in this category . So how to prepare it? I called my grandma for the recipe, and I have to say: it took a while, but this Dutch winter dish, may warm you up! Maybe wintertime is not that bad. If you want to try Dutch favorite Dish number one, I tell you grandmas secret!

Smakelijk! (Bon appétit) and have a great wintertime!

Ingredients:

500 grams of split peas
300 grams of ham
1 shoulder chop
1 bacon steak
1 big potato pealed
1 leek, sliced
½ celery, sliced
250 grams carrot, sliced
2 bay leaves
2 onions sliced
1 smoked sausage

Steps:

1. Wash the peas. Boil the ham, shoulder chop and bacon in 2l of cold water for 30 minutes.
2. Take out the froth that occasionaly comes up and stir well till the bottom of the pan.
3. Cut the potato small, add the leek, celery, carrot, potato, bay leaves and onions, let it boil for another 30 minutes.
4. Add 100 ml of warm water and pepper and sold.
5. Take the meat out, and cut in small pieces. Cut the smoked sausage and put all the meat back in it.
6. Divide the soup into four cups.
7. It is nice to eat some bread with it!
8. Bon appétit!