Instant Pot Quebec yellow pea soup: soupe aux pois under pressure, no soaking

Soupe aux pois is the yellow pea soup of Quebec: dried yellow peas, a piece of salt pork or a ham hock, onion, carrot, celery, bay and savory, simmered until the peas fall apart. On the stove it takes two to three hours and a soak the night before. In an Instant Pot the same pot of soup takes 15 minutes under pressure, with no soak, and the hock gives up its meat in the same time.

Split peas or whole

The old recipes use whole yellow peas, and some families still do. Whole peas keep a little shape and need an overnight soak. Yellow split peas are the same pea halved, cook without soaking and collapse into a smooth soup on their own. This recipe uses split peas because the pressure cooker is the reason to skip the soak. If you want whole peas, soak them overnight, use the same liquid and allow about 20 minutes on High with a full natural release. We have not cooked whole peas this way, and the pressure-cooker recipes we read had not either, so check a spoonful before you serve it.

What the pressure cooker changes

• No soak. Split peas go in dry and rinsed.
• Sauté first, then scrape. The onion and carrot build the flavour the long simmer used to give. Anything stuck to the bottom afterwards has to be scraped loose or the pot stops with a burn warning.
• Half full, natural release. Peas foam. Fill the pot no more than halfway and let the pressure fall on its own for 15 minutes before you vent, or the foam comes out of the valve.
• Less liquid than the stove. Nothing evaporates under the lid. Six cups for two cups of peas gives a thick soup; add a seventh for a thinner one.

The hock, the salt pork or neither

A ham hock is the easy choice: it seasons the soup and gives it meat. Smoked hocks are saltier and smokier than unsmoked, and the old Quebec version used salt pork, which is saltier still. With a smoked hock or salt pork, use water rather than broth and salt only at the end. Without meat, use broth, add a second tablespoon of butter and a pinch more savory, and the soup is still soupe aux pois.

Thickness

Pea soup thickens as it cools and sets in the fridge. Leftovers come back with a splash of water and a stir. It freezes well for three months. Serve it with bread, and in Quebec, with a slice of ham or a spoon of ketchup on the side.

Savory is the Quebec herb. Thyme stands in for it, and summer savory from a Newfoundland or Nova Scotia shelf is the same herb. Keep the recipe in your Forktales recipe box with the hock you used in the notes, and cook it from cook mode with the steps in big type while the pot comes to pressure.