Knowing that Heston Blumenthal is one of the chefs I admire, my sweet husband (boyfriend back then) bought me his cookbook, Heston Blumenthal at Home as a gift. Blumenthal is known for his complicated recipes that require a certain level of complicated techniques, so to minimise the chance of failure, I started with a recipe which seemed to be the easiest -- pea and ham soup. I mean...it's not possible to screw up pea soup right?
The challenging part of this recipe isn't your technique, it's your patience. It took more than 5 hours to make this soup! Was it delicious? Yes. Will I make it again? No.
Ingredients：
750g-1kg Boneless gammon ham
1 Onion (peeled and sliced)
1 Leek (white part only. cleaned and sliced)
1 Carrot (peeled and sliced)
900g Frozen peas
65g Unsalted butter
75g Shallots (peeled and diced)
1 Garlic clove (peeled and finely chopped)
160g Unsmoked bacon (cut into lardons)
a pinch of salt and black pepper
Steps：
1. Pre-heat the oven to 85 degrees.
2. Place the gammon in an ovenproof pot with the onion, leek and carrot. Cover it with 1kg cold tap water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then cover the pan and put into the pre-heated oven for 5 hours.
3. Let the ham cool in the stock. Remove and strain the stock into a bowl. Discard the vegetables and shred about 180g of the ham.
4. Spread frozen peas on a plate lined with kitchen paper and defrost completely.
5. Melt 25g butter. Add shallot, garlic and bacon. Cook for 5 minutes over medium heat or until soft.
6. Add 750g of the ham stock. Bring to the boil and shimmer for 5 minutes.
7. Add all but 75g of the peas, and the remaining butter. Remove from heat immediately.
8. Liquidise the mixture thoroughly. Strain with a sieve.
9. Pour the liquid into a clean pot. Season with salt and grounded pepper.
10. When ready to serve, gently reheat the soup. Aerate the soup with a hand blender until light and frothy. Then add the ham and the remaining 75g of peas.
11. Drizzle the soup with mint oil, then serve.
Original recipe from Heston Blumenthal at Home.
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