Life in the Overberg

Pea Soup is an original Dutch stomach filling Winter food.

There are different ways of making it but basic ingredients are split peas, onions and/or leech,  carrots, sweet potatoes, selery, turnips, leg of pork (schenkel. Eventually add herbs and spices to add additional hints of personalised flavour.

Vegetarians: skip the leg of pork and also the smoked sausages (see below).

For 10 liter soup (you can put portions in the freezer) bring 2 kilogram of split peas to the boil and let it simmer for approx. 30 minutes. Keep stirring every now and than. Than let it cool of. In the meantime boil the leg of pork for about one hour until it’s well done. Remove the bones and mix the fine cut meat and the water to the pea soup. Bring this mix to the boil again and while stirring add slowly the ingredients; herbs and spices in the final stage. As soon as the spit peas are fully dissolved the soup is ready. Some chefs add smoked sausages (in South Africa named ‘Russians’) but although South Africa produces excellent honest (merely ‘free range’) meat countrymen still have to find out how to make smoked sausages. Until so far and known to us there is only one butcher in Swellendam (Van Eeden) whose ‘Russians’ approach the pure quality of a real smoked sausage. BTW the amount of each ingredient can be adjusted to own personal insight. With a bit of experimenting everyone can make his/her own personal Dutch Pea Soup; you don’t have to be a ‘Hollander’ for that….; Double Dutch like us here in Stanford, South Africa, will also do.

Enjoy!!!