When I started The Bread & Soup Project, my method of “randomizing” was simply to hit each country in turn, alphabetically. While not actually random, it did have me bouncing around the globe, as countries aren’t distributed in that manner. But, here we are in mid-Q, as we have been the last couple of days, yet only at the end of the Bs in the project (Burundi being the next in line), and I’m not going to make trips out to specialized markets in Chinatown or such for ingredients I need to continue in that manner. So, I’m going to try to pick off a few of the countries where I can use ingredients I can readily find in my neighborhood markets. For those of you who are pedantic or have OCD of something similar you’ll just have to deal with my out of order numbering and alphabet.

Oh, Canada…. it actually turned out to be easy to pick. Throwing it out to the internet, 99.99999% of the response on searches for the choice of soup came back as some form of split pea soup, from the yellow version in Quebec, to various pureed or non in other parts of the country. Different seasonings, herbs, accompanying vegetables, meats, but it all came down to split peas. That .00001% suggested “beer and cheese soup”. I think I can dismiss that one as a national broth.

The bread side seemed to be leaning towards, well, plain white sandwich loaf bread. It was like, that’s the bread that everyone eats. Okay, yeah, that’s probably going to be true when I get to the U.S. too, but not interesting. So I went with a version of a traditional indigenous bread, bannock, which also seems like a great accompaniment for the soup. Yeah, I’m not making it by heating a rock to glowing hot and throwing the dough atop, but I did go for the “elder approved” recipe that I found online.

 

4 cups of bread flour, 2 tablespoons of baking powder (I have the feeling that truly traditionally, they weren’t using baking powder), 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups of warm water, and some lard (roughly ¼ cup).

Mix everything but the lard together and knead it into a coarse dough – my sense is you don’t want to over work this, as the bread is somewhat biscuit like.

Split the dough into twelve equal parts, roll them into balls and flatten them to about a half inch thick round. Use some of the lard to grease a baking sheet and the rest put atop each round. You can also fry these (which they did in the photo in the linked recipe). Let them rest for about half an hour before baking to let whatever gluten you’ve developed relax.

Pop them into a hot oven 400F/200C. After 15 minutes they’ll look like this.

Flip them over and put them back in the oven for 10-15 minutes…

…until golden brown on both sides. And, done.

 

So what goes into our soup? 400 grams of split peas (roughly 1¾ cups), 2 carrots, 2 thick rashers of smoked bacon (smoked ham hocks seem to be more prevalent in Canadian versions, or, Canadian bacon, but we don’t have either here, or at least not readily available), 1 large onion, 1 stalk of celery, all chopped; 1 teaspoon each of thyme and savory (an herb no one seems to use much – I grew up with it, but rarely see it in recipes anymore except from “back home”), ½ teaspoon bay leaf (or 2 whole bay leaves that you remove later), 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and 2 liters/8½ cups of chicken stock.

Render and brown the bacon in a pot with a tablespoon of butter over high heat, about five minutes.

Add the four vegetables and cook, stirring now and again, for ten minutes.

Add the split peas and the herbs, and continue cooking another five minutes.

Top with the chicken stock, bring to a simmer, cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and let cook for 1½ hours until the peas are soft but not mushy (if you prefer a pureed split pea soup, cook another half hour and the puree).

And… I forgot to take a photo of the pot at the end of the hour and a half, but it looks the same as it does in the bowl. At this point, add the salt and pepper. And, serve with the bannock bread on the side….

And… there you have it. And yum. Savory, the herb, works so well with peas and beans. It should definitely be used more often. And I love this bread, it’s perfect to accompany a hearty soup.

I won’t say what country comes next, because I don’t know what order this is going to work out in now. Such is life.

I ended up returning to my alphabetical order, and back to the previously planned Burundi.