Receta Split Pea Soup Retooled

This soup preparation with reduced-fat low-salt ham comes in with only 252 calories per serving and just 2.2 grams of fat, this recipe is just as tasty as any split pea soup I have made or eaten. Split peas are so fun to cook with and they sure do make for a tasty soup too, here is a version that yields eight portions of tasty goodness. In addition, with the winter weather we have had the past few months, this is another perfect warm treat for a cold day or night.

Modified and adapted from the Weight Watchers magazine cookbook entitled “Simple and Classic Home Cooking”, found on page 162 in the Soups section. This recipe yields eight portions and each serving has the following from the original recipe nutritional amounts per serving: 4 points, 252 calories, 43.7g carbohydrates, 2.2g fat, 4.7g fiber, 16.6g protein, 4mg cholesterol, 326mg sodium, 66mg calcium.

Recipe Retool: One of the benefits of being a chef is being able to dissect a recipe and make it more of your own, based on years of experience, taste, and procedures. Working a little magic on this recipe yields a few small but certain changes that keep with the flavors and techniques that we are akin to enjoying. Some of the nutritional value amounts may vary a little from the original recipe due to our wizardry:

Since we use real butter, we replaced it in the original recipe calling for margarine.

The original recipe called for water, and we replaced it with chicken stock.

The original recipe also calls for salt; we omitted the additional salt since even a low-salt ham has enough sodium to extract into the soup.

In fact, the original recipe called for adding the ham at the end with the herbs and seasonings in step 3, we add the ham in our version in step 2 along with the chicken stock, split peas, and potato, thus extracting more of the salt and ham flavor into the soup during the one-hour or so of simmering.