ye olde split pea ‘n’ doggs

I think it may be time for me to start branching out… using some kidneys or brains or something. but I’m on a strict budget until my trip over the pond (17 days!) and, also, I’m terrified of kidneys and brains (yeah, yeah unless they’re ground up in hot dog form). it seems like the brits are always eatin’ on kidneys, perhaps I’ll come back nicely evolved. nevertheless I’m going to keep plowing through my stack of YOT CBs and think about offal later.

joe & jim loaned me a couple of their YOT CBs about a year ago and while flipping through one discovered a lovely little promotional number tucked inside titled timely meat recipes for meal appeal.

published in 1945

the gist of the foreword (after it dedicates this book to the american homemaker) is every meal revolves around meat and/or lard because, lets get real, meat is the “main stay” and contains more essential nutrients than any other food. (quotes around “main stay” not added by me). here’s one of their examples:

And when you ask Mrs. Neighbor across the back fence what she is having for Sunday dinner, is she going to say that she has decided on a tossed green salad? Well, hardly! She’s more likely to come up with an idea such as roast leg of lamb with mint sauce, and the salad will be fit into the menu later.

totally. I mean, tossed green salad for sunday dinner? the horror!

so I decided on something from the luncheon section. picked out because split peas are cheap and I had some hot dogs in the freezer.

split pea soup with frankfurters after the jump.

SPLIT PEA SOUP WITH FRANKFURTERS

2 cups dried peas
3 quarts water
Ham seasoning piece
1 medium sized stalk celery
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter or fortified margarine
4 tablespoons flour
1 quart milk
Salt and pepper
Frankfurters

Look over, wash and soak peas over-night. Cook peas in soaking water, adding seasoning meat and celery. Simmer for several hours until tender. Gently brown the onions in the fat and add the flour. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Add to rest of soup. Season to taste. The soup should be quite thick. Water, soup stock, milk or cream may be added to thin, if desired. Serve in a large tureen with thin slices of frankfurters floating on top. Serves 8.

okey dokey… lets do this. decided to 1) cut the recipe in half, 2) skip the celery (which btw are we supposed to chop it up or leave it in whole like some sort of flavoring agent?) and 3) brown the frankfurter slices (for aesthetic purposes).

last week while at rainbow grocery I picked up just over a cup of split peas for a cool 62 cents:

hellz to the yeah!

and yesterday popped into mollie stones for the “ham flavoring agent”. one of my new year’s resolutions is to stop shopping there for anything beyond the very basics because as everyone knows, I f*cking hate that store but it’s so stupidly convenient I can’t give it up entirely. I decided to just “go and see” what they had in the vacuum sealed portion of the meat department. if I can find something suitable I’ll call it a day otherwise pop in to a legit butcher the next morning for some hook up and consultation.

while I was there what do I see? veal tongues. vacuum sealed veal tongues. oh my effing gee even mollie knows I need to get with the program and start offalling it up! and then lazy ol’ me was delighted to find this! ham, looks flavorful, contains a bone, a small enough portion. oh… sometimes it’s so great to be reminded mollie stones doesn’t blow so much after all. it was like our souls were connected.

ye olde tymey experiment costing a grand total of $3.25! thrifty!

part of the glory of working from home is having the freedom to do long simmers during the day so this morning went to set the meat and soaked peas to simmer and that’s when I saw it.

oh f*cking holy hell I hate that place. sure, we’re talking a few days with smoked meat so I’m not worried but it’s the principle. and – why in gods name aren’t bar codes on your prepackaged items tied to expiration dates? remove human error from the equation and get with the times! you want to know what I’m doing tomorrow morning? I’m treating myself to a starbucks so I can pop in and check the date on those gnarly veal tongues. working from home glory I’m tellin’ ya.

anyway, then this happened:

cooking everything in the soaking water didn’t sound right but I did it anyway and scraped out loads of foamy annoyance over the first hour:

after about 2 1/2 hours it looked like this:

I’ve only made split pea soup a handful of times and it’s always been of the vegan variety (cut to the national live stock and meat board shuddering at the lack of nutrients) so I went with ye olde tymey instincts and fished out the expired shank to pick off the meat:

and after it sat for a while, went to town:

while I worked on this I noticed as the soup started to cool loads of fat was rising to the surface. this is fine and all, I suppose, but I found it overall unappealing. since I had the time I decided to refrigerate the soup, scrape some of the excess fat from the top, reheat the soup and continue. (it was at this point while refrigerating I called my parents to chat and when they asked what I was doing replied “going rogue with a ye olde tymey recipe.”) well… as it turns out… it wasn’t really fat it was this gelatinous sludge. is this from the bones? it’s reminding me of the time I made a lamb shank and was advised by a legitimate butcher that the un-meaty portion of the bone was worth adding just to thicken the gravy. does bryan’s have any internships?

here’s the swamp watery sludge:

and here’s me brownin’ up some dawgs:

while those were frying I took another look at the suggested menu accompanying the recipe. I love how this is so clearly defined as a “one-dish meal” yet don’t forget the spinach & radish salad and caramel dumplings!

anywho, I took some pictures of the whole mise en place which didn’t turn out (forgot to put butter in the shot) and then snapped this while I snacked on fried hot dogs:

quick multitasking while whisking action shot of the butter/onion/flour:

dumped in the milky gravy (which wasn’t thick enough, I have got to work on that):

stirred it up:

and served it up:

the result? well, it was okay. mostly I was just so over it by the time it was finished I couldn’t enjoy it for what it was (creamy expired ham goodness).  if I was straight transported back in time and mrs. housewife called ‘cross the fence to tell me she was having split pea soup with frankfurters would I roll for lunch? totally.

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