Post 216: Gammon Trilogy part 4: Gammon and Pea soup and roasted squash soup

And now the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
Gamm-on, I've had quite a bit
Of some of it's uses I'm not quite certain
I've had a gut that's full
Walking it off along the highway
And no more, no more Gammo that this. I cooked it my way!

After Roasting the gammon, I trimmed all the fat off. Because I was cutting the meat quite thick for butties, I thought leaving any fat on it all all would be pretty rank. So, while slicing the fat off, I also included quite a lot of meat too. This I decided was too good an opportunity to waste to make soup.

So, starting as ever with:
- 2 onions, finely chopped and fried
- half a dozen sage leafs (just because I had some)
- 1 big squash, which I roasted for extra flavour along with 4 cloves of garlic

I included all the fat from the gammon - including the bits which didn't have any meat on at all. After the squash and garlic were roasted I combined everything into a pan along with a pint of stock. At this point, I decided that this looked thin and very dull - far from the hearty warming soup I was hoping for.

I was reminded that we had some marrow fat peas lurking in the back of the cupboard.

I added a mug full of them and another pint of stock, and then simmered until the hard peas had gone soft.

I was conscious of the amonut of fat that was in there. So, after the peas looked done, I fished any big lumps of fat out - flaking off any meat bits to keep in the soup. After that, I put the soup in the garage to chill in order to lift the cooling fat to the surface:.

It was at this stage the most revolting thing I've ever seen. I skimmed off the fat. I had been intending to blitz the soup. But when I'd warmed it up it looked like this:

And I was more than happy with that. Exactly the result I'd been hoping for. I can't say the squash had added anything to proceedings; but it didn't detract and I'd used it (which is sometimes tricky with thesse).

I served with some crusty white bread and a mighty fine meal it made too.

To end the Gammon trilogy, with a summary, from ~3Lbs / 1.3 kilos of gammon, I got:

• A roast dinner for 2
• 3 large portions of soup
• 2 super large portions of Pan Heggarty (there should have been more but I was hungry)
• 3 lunch's worth of butties

Not bad at all!