Soup from The Mancave; Scottish Green Split Pea and Ham Soup

A healthy choice, certainly, but no foo-foo; just a great recipe.

Ingredients.
1 good thick (1/4 inch or thicker) slice of ham, 1lb frozen peas, 1/2 lb Rutabaga (turnip/neeps), 1lb potatoes, 4oz GREEN split peas, 1 Onion, 4 ham stock cubes

Method.
Bring to boil 3 pints of water with the stock cubes. Chop ham, rutabaga, and onion; add to the boiling stock, cover, and boil sharply for an hour. Turn down the heat, add diced Potatoes and GREEN split peas, boil very gently for an hour, stirring frequently.
(Be gentle here, the tendency is for the peas to sink to the bottom and get ‘burnt’ if you cook this part too vigorously)
Now the tricky bit; either take HALF the soup and blend it a bit, or hit the pan hard with one of those hand liquidisers. BUT; we still want some whole peas, and some biggish bits of ham.
The spoon should be able to stand up in the pan at this point.

Serve.
With a touch of cream, and a sprig of something green and foo-foo.

Hint here; your soup should be really mid GREEN at this point. (PARENTS NOTE; Trying hard not to mention baby’s nappies (diapers) here, but obviously not succeeding.)
(Mothers or good Dads will nod their heads in understanding at this point.)

A spot or six of Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce, or A1 steak sauce of you want a wee ‘nip’ in the taste buds.
Spoonful of curry powder if you want a bit more than a 'nip'.
(Both, if you want the soup to have a PUNCH!)

And whatever you do, DON'T listen to the idiots that think you can make this with any old split peas.... I'm a Hibernian Supporter.... THEY HAVE TO BE GREEN for the soup to work aesthetically!!!

(Those dirty crappy BROWN split peas make the soup look like crap......... literally!)