Comments on: split pea soup with flanken

By: Sue mack

Sue mack — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:34:58 +0000

Making this soup and enjoying my own grandma memories. We always had beef flanken in the pea soup. Now that I am a grandma too I must say she was the best cook, and had the smallest and most challenging Brooklyn kitchen!
I just googled pea soup and flanken and found your story. Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the memories.

By: HARVEY SININS

HARVEY SININS — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:13:28 +0000

Sounds like a great recipe, just wondering the proper amount of water and chicken stock to use for one bag of split peas.

By: bob friedman

bob friedman — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:10:29 +0000

thanks for this remarkable posting! my mother also made this recipe. i believe she would use a manischevitz soup mix-a cellophane package filled with lentils and different colored split peas. sometimes she would add potatoes-as if it was not thick enough!
what could be more fortifying than this soup on a cold winter night?

By: Bren

Bren — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:33:56 +0000

hey you. so you are the only non-Cuban I’ve ever known to know what split peas are and you actually cook them very similar to our potaje. though we don’t eat ours as soup, instead over rice. ours is not as thick as your eithers. but the flavors are similar. and since we don’t eat pork, we too use flank steak (we don’t brown first). and so ur right! they can put all the ham hock they want, but they’re WRONG!!! lol. In short, split peas ( we call them chicharos (pronounced “cheecharros”) are my all time favorite beans! I just had them last week during my visit home for Christmas! LOVE THEM.

okay I’m such an idiot. I just realized i had already commented on this back in Nov. Oh well, that’s how much I love them! Happy New Year love.

By: maybelles mom

maybelles mom — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:28:25 +0000

love the flanken; I definitely would have browned the meat.

By: Irene

Irene — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:49:27 +0000

My dad always says that every Jewish holiday is like, “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!”

By: Bren

Bren — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:01:46 +0000

girlfriend, you know splitpeas are my absolute fave bean in the world. I just mentioned that in my last post. I love to see other people’s versions. Bellabusta?!?! Classic–love it!

By: [eatingclub] vancouver || js

[eatingclub] vancouver || js — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:45:33 +0000

If ever I get to cook my split pea soup (it always gets postponed: Vancouver weather plays with me like you wouldn’t believe), I’ll try it with flanken. Yup. That’s what I’m going to do.

By: Traci @ Soup of The Day

Traci @ Soup of The Day — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:08:42 +0000

That is really funny about seeing the tongue. I was JUST thinking, wait, a kid liked tongue?

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:22:15 +0000

That’s a great idea… especially since I’ve got a big-ass hunk of brisket for making pastrami next week………

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:24:36 +0000

So our mothers were similar then. Decent food, but more out of duty than a joy of cooking, to be sure. My mom had specialties too. Brisket, veal parmigiana (!), crockpot lasagna, fried chicken, corned beef and cabbage… yeah, I’m all out.

You already know my grandmothers didn’t teach me squat about food either, but my dad’s mother Helen did make great soups. I’ve only stopped to ponder recreating her matzo ball one and her beef barley one. I haven’t thought about the split pea one in years and years. What a wonderful reminder this post is. Wonderful.

Short ribs. Hm. I’ll think about it.

By: Jennifer Hess

Jennifer Hess — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:49:01 +0000

Oh. Oh my. I see pea soup with flanken in my future.

By: lo

lo — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:12:32 +0000

mmm. Pea soup with a spoon standing up in it.
Now you’re playing my song.

Great stories to go along too!

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:19:03 +0000

I absolutely love pea soup but it makes me gassy. I�ve never tried it with beef, so maybe I�ll get some short ribs and stay away from open flames for a couple of days! They say Flanken has been quite popular lately in Minnesota!

By: lifeinrecipes

lifeinrecipes — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:31:37 +0000

A slice of apple tart for a bowl of your soulful bowl of pea soup – deal? Want it now.

By: ntsc

ntsc — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:28:24 +0000

Flanken is Yiddish for short ribs cut in a specific way. Across multiple bones instead of with the bone. (I’m not Jewish, but this was the answer when I asked a Jewish cook friend, who is in my wife’s league when it comes to cooking).

This should work with any beef laden with cartilage/fat to melt. Don’t cook very much over 180F

I think it would taste great with ox-tails, but ox-tails do have a different taste from other beef.

We have also done this with a bone from a dry cured ham

By: Samantha

Samantha — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:57:13 +0000

Oh this post was really lovely. It made me miss my mom’s mediocre cooking. My grandmother was also a fabulous cook.
Maybe it’s time to make pea soup, and soon!

By: noble pig

noble pig — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:30:53 +0000

You didn’t kill us, let’s eat…oh that’s a good one…love the soup and oh yes flanken, I would have to go back to L.A. to find that one!

Beautiful memories attached to this winning recipe, loved reading it.

By: Flora

Flora — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:09:16 +0000

This thick split pea is an Uncle Bernie’ favorite soup, right next to chicken soup with Matzah balls. I only use flanken, which can be purchased at Kosher meat markets, where in Atlanta they are located at the KROGER or PUBLIX , located in the larger Jewish neighborhoods. Flanken bones add lots of flavor. Like Grandma Julia, I take the cooked flanken out of the soup, if it hasn’t totally shredded apart after cooking, and we eat it separately with red horseradish. I use it from a jar, but Claudia, I have a feeling you would make that from scratch! I add a bag of shelled white large lima beans and at the end of cooking, some barley. Before I put in the white beans, I soak them in boiling water, and take off the skins before adding them to the soup. This is very time consuming – but it’s worth the effort. This is something that my mother-in-law did. My soup recipe is a combination of my mother and my mother-in-law’s recipes. When I make this soup, I make a huge pot of it and put it away in various containers to freeze. It’s a perfect winter supper. Like your photo, our spoons also can stick up straight in this thick and yummy soup. It feels like winter already- time to buy that flanken and the rest of the soup ingredients.

By: kristie

kristie — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:53:14 +0000

flanken, blanken, and nad: a favorite bedtime story of mine about 3 children sailing through the sky on a raft of meat…ah.

Peas are so tasty, and your writing is beautiful, but pea soup looks like boogers. Yours looks like oddly delicious boogers, though.

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:32:36 +0000

Beefy split pea! Now there’s an idea my man can get on board with. Had no idea about flanken. Thanks for bringing it south!

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:06:09 +0000

Grandmothers are the best, and I loved your story! Split pea soup is one of my favorite soups. I grew up using pork as the meat, but going to try flanken next time. Love the spoon test…..

By: Ethel

Ethel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:41:11 +0000

What a great dinner served in one bowl with good bread and a salad. I would imagine this soup freezes real well for more good meals.
You are fortunate to have this fabulous receipe of 1. take lots of memories and2, mix with your grandmother’s love of good cooking and 3, add your take to it and share with others.
How wonderful is that !!!!!!

By: We Are Never Full

We Are Never Full — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:05:18 +0000

great post! this soup reminds me of those chunky soup commericals – if memory serves correct, it said something like, “so good, you’ve gotta eat it with a fork”… i think i’m wrong there.

anyways, even w/o the spoon standingstraight up in the pic, you can tell how thick it is. love the idea of the flanken/short ribs…

ps: please, please, please, i beg you to give tongue a try! maybe veal tounge? maybe, just maybe?

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:00:25 +0000

One of the most traumatic moments of my childhood eating — and there were many — was the time my mother made tongue and then served it on a platter as is. Just a big, gross tongue. I was about ten and my sisters and I did some serious hysterical crying at the very idea of eating it. My mother was a dangerous combination: bad cook, given to experimenting with odd things like tongue and tripe.

I’ve never seen short ribs in pea soup (I’ve always used ham hocks) but I love short ribs and think they make everything better. And isn’t flanken a much cooler name than short ribs?