Grochówka: thick Polish split pea soup on smoked pork, with sausage and marjoram
The soup Poles associate with the army field kitchen and scout camps: yellow split peas soaked overnight, cooked in a stock of pork ribs and smoked bacon until they collapse and thicken the soup themselves, with potatoes, sausage and a handful of marjoram. Thick enough for the spoon to stand up. Better the next day, once the flavours have settled.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Peas soaking 720 min
- Stock 40 min
- Peas cooking 45 min
- Potatoes, sausage, marjoram 25 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
The evening before: soak the peas
Rinse the peas in a sieve and cover with plenty of cold water, at least three times their volume. Leave overnight, 8–12 hours. In the morning pour off the water and rinse again.
Ingredients: 400 g yellow split peas · 500 g pork ribs · 150 g smoked bacon · 2500 ml water · 2 pcs carrots · 1 pcs parsley root · 1 pcs celeriac, a piece · 1 pcs onion · 2 pcs bay leaves · 5 pcs allspice berries · 6 pcs black peppercorns
TipSoaked peas cook noticeably faster and more evenly. The soaking water carries off some of the sugars responsible for bloating: pour it away, don't cook in it.
A night in cold water, drained in the morning
Make the smoky stock
Cover the ribs, bacon, vegetables, charred onion and spices with water, bring to the boil, skim. Simmer 40 minutes. Lift out the carrot, slice it and set aside. Strain the stock into a clean pot and put the ribs and bacon back in — they finish cooking along with the peas. Don't salt yet.
Ribs and bacon, forty minutes, no salt
Cook the peas in the stock
Tip the drained peas into the stock and simmer, lid ajar, 40–50 minutes, stirring now and then so they don't catch on the bottom. The peas should be completely soft and partly collapsed.
TipAcid stops pulses from softening, so nothing sour goes into the pot until the peas have collapsed. Salt goes in at the very end for another reason: the bacon and sausage give up plenty of it and the soup reduces, so it is easy to oversalt.
Peas softening and collapsing in the stock
Add the potatoes and meat
Once the peas are soft, lift out the ribs and bacon, strip the meat from the bones and dice it with the bacon. Add the potatoes in 1.5 cm dice, the meat, bacon and carrot to the soup. Cook 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. If the soup is too thick, add boiling water; grochówka should be thick but still pour.
Ingredients: 400 g potatoes · 250 g smoked Polish sausage · 1 pcs onion · 3 cloves garlic · 2 tbsp dried marjoram · 1½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Thick, golden, potatoes in for a quarter hour
Fry the sausage with onion
Slice the sausage, dice the onion. Fry together in a dry pan 5 minutes, until the sausage releases its fat and browns and the onion turns translucent. Add the crushed garlic at the end and fry half a minute. Tip everything, fat included, into the soup.
TipFried sausage gives the soup smoke and depth that sausage dropped in raw never does. The fat from the pan is flavour, not waste.
Sausage browned, onion soft, garlic last
Season and serve
Crush the marjoram between your palms over the pot, season with salt and pepper, bring back to the boil. Serve with bread. Keeps 3 days in the fridge and sets like jelly; reheat with a splash of water.
Marjoram from the palms, salt only now
Before you start
Without soaking
Split peas can be cooked unsoaked: count 90 minutes instead of 45 and top up with water more often. A teaspoon of bicarbonate shortens the time but spoils the flavour.
The field-kitchen version
A small smoked pork hock (about 700 g) instead of the ribs: the soup comes out darker and smokier, like the army pot. Simmer the hock in the stock for 60 minutes, then add the peas and carry on until both the hock and the peas are tender.
The peas won't soften
The usual culprits are old peas (more than a year in the cupboard) or hard water. Check the date on the packet, and with very hard water use filtered or bottled. Don't add anything sour before the peas have collapsed, either.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
