We were invited to Christmas Eve dinner and were fortunate enough to take away some leftover ham. I'd been eating this ham for days and other than having it as a cheese toastie, didn't know what else to do with it. I could of course make fried rice, but I'm not a fan of wok cooking especially in this heat. So here is inspiration that I obtained from various food bloggers - obviously it's a common sentiment! Unfortunately though, these food bloggers are all in the Northern Hemisphere where it's really cold now, so a warm soup sounds like a good idea. I decided to slow cook this up but serve it cold. Although the blogger claimed to have cooked up the soup in 15 minutes, I spent an hour and the carrots, celery and potatoes were cooked and still had a bite but were not meltingly soft. I decided to slow cook for an extra hour and it was perfect!
Sources
(1) Ham and potato soup https://cafedelites.com/ham-potato-soup/ (uses a roux base)
(2) Ham and bean soup https://cafedelites.com/ham-bean-soup/ (clear soup)
Ingredients
4 medium carrots, diced
4 stalks of celery, sliced
1 red onion, diced
4 medium potatoes, diced
2 to 3 bay leafs
1 tsp black pepper corns, crushed
1 can of beans
1 litre of chicken stock
200g ham, diced
Method
1) Saute the soffritto (i.e. onion, carrots, celery) until fragrant in a bit of oil. Add in the potato and ham and briefly saute.
2) Pour in the chicken stock, and add the bay leaf and pepper corns. Bring to a boil and skim off the scum.
3) Slow cook for 1 to 2 hours until the vegs have softened to your liking.
4) Serve hot or keep in the fridge overnight and serve cold the next day.
