dem bones

I love it to be presented with a castoff I can turn into yet another taste treat.  You’ve seen what happens with duck and turkey cast-offs (1).  This week found me receiving more bounty.  Kathy liked my brined turkey breast so much it was gone quickly.  So when they came on sale at Kroger’s, I picked up another one which is already in the brine same day, smoked the next, and being eaten as I type.  Then at Meijer’s the next day, I saw they has big butt hams on sale.  I get a lot of mileage out of those, so of course picked one up.  The home butchering got some big chunks ready for slicing, some smaller bits ready for snacking or soups, and of course the bone.   This being a butt ham, it’s not just a nice smooth femur, but that bone and its articulation with the acetabulum of the pelvis.  So I’ve actually got 2 bones. What can you do with them?  Oh my!  My Dutch soul craves some tasty split-pea soup.  But I’m also gonna have this turkey carcass.  So this calls for a little creativity.  I’ve already landed on a name “turham splt pea soup”.  Maybe a little homage to my best friend, Eric Durham. That name got embellished when I learned the Dutch call their soup        “Erwtensoep” (pronounced: Air-ten-soup) or “snert” (2).  Who wouldn’t want a bowl of snert!  But now the recipe!  I have 9 recipe cards for split pea soup in my box, all cut out of newspapers and pasted for later use.  None by itself seems right for this project, so I do what I always do confronting a new recipe, make a spreadsheet!  From this I can discern trends and pick and choose what I want in my recipe.  I added a 10^th column for my recently discovered “true” Dutch split pea soup.

So this is how I approach a new recipe.  I pick and choose ingredients that look good.  I nearly always add more garlic and whatever it might take to bring up the heat a little.  With this one there was a vegetable choice. 

In the dead of winter, when the boer is craving some snert, he’ll have some balls of celeriac around when all the celery is long wilted away.  The root still has the celery flavor as well as some starchiness, especially nice when your low glycemic index sweetie says no potatoes.   So, here’s my recipe

The making of it was not without some drama, as I was shocked to find my cache of legumes of many varieties did not include split peas!  Out to Kroger’s Kathy goes, a 5’ drive.  Then it was time to take a leek, and none of those!  Kroger’s had none so a 30’ round trip to Busch’s was necessary.  It’s good that she loves me still.   Cooking stuff in this Insta-Pot thing in nothing flat is possible with its pressure option, but I wanted the ingredients to get to know each other in their leisurely overnight bath, so Mr. hi-tech Insta-Pot became a plain old slow-cooker.

In the morning, dem bones came out, and showed their bath had been a pretty thorough cleanse.  All that color they once had turned into more goodness for the soup.  I’m sure it’s a sacrifice of which dem bones can be proud.

A little more cooking as the newly chopped but well-cooked onions and the meat have to join in.

And boy do I have some snert!  Some will get frozen in a few days after I figure how fast we go through this stuff.  

It’s a meal in itself, but a little rye bread on the side sure helps.  With all that ham, I made sure to lay in some rye bread.  I’ve got a nice loaf of Zingerman’s Jewish rye, and thanks to my Latvian friend in Kalamazoo, I have an outstanding loaf of Black Rooster Baltic Rye (4).

So here we are in the middle of winter, almost Christmas, and can all use some snert.  As our old bones are soothed by the goodness we ingest, remember to thank dem bones that made it possible (5).

References

1. Ike B.  tur-duck-?en soup.  WordPress 11/28/23.   https://theviewfromharbal.com/2023/11/28/tur-duck-en-soup/

2. Erwtensoep – Dutch Split Pea Soup.  Wandercooks 5/21/20.  https://www.wandercooks.com/snert-dutch-split-pea-soup-erwtensoep/

3. Olsen N.  What are the health benefits of celeriac?  Medical News Today 11/1/19.  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320374

4. BREAD AS BREAD WAS MEANT TO BE.  Black Rooster https://blackroosterfood.com

5. The Delta Rhythm Boys – Dry Bones.  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1szphOU1E0