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Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Flanken

February 1, 2010

I saw flanken at my kosher butcher several months ago, and knew back then that I wanted to make it with split pea soup. Flanken are thinly-cut beef short ribs; Beth has a great photo of them on her site. Flanken-cut ribs are sometimes called “Korean style” as well — they’re usually barbecued, while kosher flanken is usually cooked low and slow. Perfect for the Crock-Pot.

I used Stephanie O’Dea’s CrockPot Split Pea Soup Recipe as a starting point, and to get the liquid to solid ratio right for my soup. I had the bag of dried peas in my pantry and the flanken in my freezer, so although I hadn’t shopped for the other ingredients I decided to pull it together from what I had on hand. It was so delicious, I’d probably make it the same way next time!

We wound up not eating this for dinner (J. and the boys had way less enthusiasm for trying this soup than I did), but I have been enjoying it myself one bowl at a time. I did freeze a good portion, and after removing the flanken from the bone, shredded it and put it on top of the soup. I’m going to defrost it and serve it for dinner tomorrow night, when my parents are here — I think they’ll love it too.

If I’d had enough vegetable stock in the house to do so, I would have eliminated the veggie stock cube entirely and just done 5 cups of broth. I might have also added some chopped carrots.

I found the consistency of the soup was smooth enough for me without blending, but you can certainly use an immersion blender to get it more uniformly creamy. Just don’t forget to remove the bay leaf and flanken first!

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup with Flanken

1 lb. flanken-cut beef ribs (or a little more)
1 medium onion, diced
1 lb. bag dried split peas, rinsed and picked through
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. kosher salt
10 grinds black pepper
1 vegetable stock cube (I use Telma), crushed
1 c. vegetable stock
4 c. water

Add ingredients in the order listed to a 6 qt. slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Remove bay leaf, discard. Remove flanken and set aside until it is cool enough to handle. Remove meat from the bones, and shred. Serve soup with a small portion of flanken on top, or stir it back into the pot.

Filed under: Crock pot,Soup