I bought a ham recently and after cutting most of the meat of the bone, decided I would make a soup. Nancy is not always fond of bean soups, a traditional kind of soup to use with a ham bone, so I decided to do a potato soup. Below is the recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ham bone
- 1 medium onion
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2-3 quarts water
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 4 medium russet potatoes
- 1 1/2 cup diced ham
- 1 cup peas
- 1/2 cup grated cheese (Parmesan, Asiago, or Romano)
Procedure
- In a stock pot, or large sauce pan, cover the ham bone with water.
- Peal, roughly chop and add the garlic and onions to the stock pot
- Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat. When the liquid reaches a boil, turn the heat low enough to maintain a gentle simmer.
- After an 1 to 1 1/2 hours, remove and discard the bone. The meat should fall away from the bone by this time. It is not particularly flavorful, having yielded its flavor to the stock, so don’t bother trying to add it back into the stock.
- Skim any fat from the surface of the stock. (The stock could be stored at this point for future use.)
- Peel and chop the the potatoes into chunks of approximately the same size. Size doesn’t matter since they will be pureed, but making the chunks the same size insures they will cook in about the same time.
- When the potatoes break apart when a knife is inserted, purée the garlic, onions, and potatoes with an immersion blender.
- Thin the soup with a little water if the consistency is too thick. Or thicken the soup with a little corn starch mixed with cold water if the consistency is too thin for your taste.
- Add ham chunks and peas to the liquid and heat through.
- Remove from heat and stir in grated cheese.
- Serve with a little more grated cheese on top
Variations
I didn’t have a lot of herbs available, but adding a bay leaf at the beginning would be good. Carrots and celery would also add flavor to the stock.