Easy Split Pea Soup

From Epicurious. I made this a month or so ago with a smoked ham hock that I bought from the local butcher. It was a massive ham hock that yielded plenty of meat that I trimmed off and added to the soup. The hock was so large that it made it impossible to add the 8 cups of water to the pot. I had to add 1 or 2 cups later, after some had evaporated off. A large stock pot didn't come with the furnished flat, but I think it's a necessary investment. Cambridge in winter is definitely a prime soup location.

I didn't add any additional salt, but the ham hock provided more than enough - too much actually. M* and I are both salt minimalists. I also didn't puree the soup, as I like it chunky. I just let it cook for an extra hour or so. Didn't have the marjoram, so I added thyme.

Today, I used some leftover back bacon that M* had bought while I was gone, instead of the ham hock. This time all 8 cups of water fit in the pot since I didn't use the volume hogging hock. Left fat on the bacon - as pork fat is good, good, good. Substituted 1/2 of the butter with olive oil - but I didn't measure and I may have overdone the total butter/oil amount. Once again I didn't use marjoram - added thyme, garlic and bay leaves.

One of the reviewer comments on the Epicurious site mentioned using turkey instead of pork - may try that next time. Another comment mentioned adding miso at the end to bring out the smoky flavor, if making it vegetarian. Since I am not using the smoked ham hock this time, I'm going to add some Spanish paprika towards the end. It's supposed to have a smokier flavor than other paprikas. Oh, almost forgot - I threw in a potato that we had to help thicken it. M* loves his potatoes.

update - If I was going to use bacon again, I would trim off the fat or put it in a sack or something. The bacon fat had separated from the bacon - and it was hard to decide what was bacon fat and what was a garlic pieces that I hadn't cut all that small. Also, if one wanted to puree any amount of the soup, the bacon should be kept in a bag as well. It had come apart to the point that it was too hard to pull the pieces out. I guess I could have pureed it with the bacon in it, but that just kind of weired/ grossed me out. The paprika was a nice add to the soup. In general, it was muy tasty.