This Pea Soup (Hernekeitto) is a traditional Finnish dish that’s particularly delightful on those cold winter days! It’s filling and nutritious, and suitable for most diets as it’s gluten and dairy-free. Furthermore, it can easily be turned into a vegan dish by simply leaving the pork out. If you are a fan of mushy peas you are going to love it, but if mushy peas are not your cup of pea (sorry I couldn’t resist!), it’s best to leave it for others because as the name implies, peas really are the hero of this dish!
Finnish Pea Soup
🍴 Servings: 6 – 7
🕒 Hands-on: 10 – 15 minutes
🎛 Cooking time: ~ 3 hours
🔷 + Soaking the peas for 12 – 16 hours
INGREDIENTS
- 500g dried whole peas
- 2.5L water
- 500g gammon
- 1 brown onion, diced
- 2 – 3 carrots, peeled and cut into medium dice
- 1.5 – 2 tsp salt
- ½ – 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp marjoram
- mustard, to serve (optional)
STEPS
1 Put the peas into a large pan with 1.5 litres of cold water and leave to soak overnight, or for 12-16 hours.
2 On the next day, add the remaining 1 litre of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the temperature to medium-high and cook for about 10 minutes. Using a spoon, peel off the foam that appears on the surface.
3 Add salt and leave the soup to simmer uncovered for about an hour. While the soup is simmering, chop the veggies ready.
4 After one hour, add the gammon joint, chopped onions, carrots and season with black pepper and marjoram. Cook on a low heat for another hour (either uncovered or covered – keeping it uncovered means more water will evaporate and the soup will be slightly thicker).
5 Remove the gammon and chop into bite size, about 1-2cm, chunks. Once chopped, put back in the soup and cook for another 20-30 minutes.
6 Finally, check the seasoning, salt in particular, and adjust if needed. Serve with mustard on top for the extra oomph!
Notes:
- Bicarbonate of soda —The peas I use in England come with sodium bicarbonate tablets. These tablets help soften the peas during soaking, so I’d definitely advise using them! In that case follow the package instructions, you’ll need to dissolve the tablets in hot water first and then pour the hot water over the peas. In addition, you’ll need to drain and rinse the peas the next day after soaking them to remove the bicarbonate of soda (and naturally use 2.5 litres of fresh water as per recipe)
- Foam —You don’t necessarily have to peel off the foam in the beginning, but doing this gives the soup more vibrant colour
- Meat — Finnish pea soup traditionally contains pork. Cooking the meat with the soup adds more flavour, but you can also replace gammon with cooked ham. If replacing, you can simply add the ham towards the end (for like 15 minutes) or even add it on top of the soup when serving. You can use as much or little as you like, I’d say about 300-400g ham will be enough. And smoked ham will be tastier
- Other — I usually cook a 750g smoked gammon joint in the soup as this is the smallest joint they have in the supermarkets. However, I feel like it’s slightly too much meat for the soup so after cooking I usually leave some aside and use it for something else 🙂
ALLERGEN & DIET INFO:
(VG) You can very easily turn this dish vegan by simply leaving the pork out!
Main equipment:
Large stockpot (5L)
Peeler
Chopping board + knife
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