Reddit reviews Better Than Bouillon Ham Base, 8 Ounce

Split pea soup is a dangerous recipe for pressure cookers and should only be attempted by someone who has a lot of experience knowing how to look for signs of trouble due to clogging of the pressure valves from excessive foaming.

All the people here who say the problem is due to overfilling, well, they're wrong. Split pea soup can foam up and clog the vent EVEN THOUGH IT IS WELL BELOW THE MAX FILL LINES. In fact, split pea soup can foam up even when there's only one inch of soup in the pot. The issue isn't merely how much soup that's in the pot, nor how much space is left to allow for some foaming: the most important issue is controlling the foaming itself, which involves the thickness of the soup as the starches absorb the liquid, how much fat and oil is in the soup (since they tend to help reduce foaming), and taking care to AVOID RAPID BOILING of the soup at any time during the pressure cooking process, ESPECIALLY THE DEPRESSURIZATION.

Split pea soup recipes must be drastically altered in order to avoid foaming and to take advantage of pressure cooking.

When using ham hocks, they should be pressure cooked separately before adding any other ingredients. They should be cooked in water or stock for about 20 minutes at full 15psi, or 25 minutes in an InstantPot or other medium pressure cooker. For split pea soup, I highly recommend using a high quality ham base for the cooking liquid, which you can find at restaurant supply stores, at some Walmarts, or on Amazon. Look for the Better than Buillion or similar that has a lot more ham flavor than salt.

After cooking the ham hocks you should strain the liquid to separate the meat and bones, then use a fork to strip the bone of the meat, then dice the meat so that there are no long-stringy pieces. You can then add the meat back to the stock to proceed with the pea soup.

One ingredient you were missing was celery. Celery is the most important flavor of split pea soup, just like how cumin is the most important flavor of chili. However, celery, onion, and carrots cook very quickly under pressure and will turn to mush. That's ok for building up the flavor of the soup, since these are "sacrificial" vegetables that give up their flavor and help to thicken the soup. But the soup will be much better if you reserve part of these vegetable to add only after pressure cooking so that they will retain their flavor, color, and texture so that you can have a more complex and interesting result than pea soup mush. These vegetables will cook relatively quickly without pressure, and it's much safer to cook them without pressure due to the danger of foaming when depressurizing and repressurizing to cook them. It is possible to cook them under pressure if you're very careful, but you don't really save time since doing a natural release takes the same amount of cooking time for them. Barley is also a good grain to add to pea soup if you want a more chunky country texture.

For the pea soup itself, add the split peas to the ham stock along with the sacrificial veggies. Since you like bacon, add it at this time too, but I suggest reserving some bacon bits to add with shredded cheese, green onion and sour cream to add to the bowl on top just before serving.

To pressure cook the split peas, I highly recommend using a stovetop pressure cooker instead of an electric one because you can control the temperature and steam release much better when you know what you're doing. You should minimize the steam that is being released under pressure. You should use very low heat. You should use a larger pressure cooker than normally necessary so that you can maintain a much larger amount of space for foaming above the liquid level. Only use a natural release - meaning just let it sit there and cool off until the pressure goes back to normal. There should not be a lot of steam being released while it's depressurizing. If a lot of steam is being released, then the soup inside is very likely boiling rapidly, which is the cause of the foaming that you want to prevent.

Note that split pea soup will continue to thicken as it cools down. Don't be surprised if the pea soup thickens so much in the fridge that it becomes a solid block of pea soup. It gets more smooth and creamy if you let it fully cool, leave it in the fridge, and then reheat it later by using water or milk to thin it out enough to stir at low heat.

After cooking split pea soup, you need to quickly and carefully clean the pressure cooker lid or the starches and food will solidify like glue inside the valves, which is very dangerous for the next time you use it if you don't do a thorough cleaning.

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillon-Ham-Base/dp/B00016LA8E

hi-5 /u/omitoe

Better Than Boullion is so awesome, stores only carry Chicken/Beef stock but online you can get ham base (would be killer for ramen), lobster base, mushroom base, even clam base.

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Than-Bouillon-Ham-Base/dp/B00016LA8E/ref=sr_1_2?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1405215602&sr=1-2&keywords=pork+bouillon