Monday, December 31, 2018

Ham and bean soup (slow cooker)

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.

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