The recipe that I use does not soak them. The only difference it should make is the cooking time. If you don't soak them the soup may take a little longer to cook.
Here is a website with some information on cooking with dried peas.
kurlylox, don't soak them. Just make sure you have lots of the stock in the pot when you put them in. If you want your soup to be nice and thick then you need your peas to be dry when they go in. I was very disappointed in my soup the one time I soaked them first.
On a side note to split pea soup, since everyone answered the soaking question...try adding a tablespoon of creamy peanut butter to the soup. It gives the soup a great creamy taste.
On a side note to split pea soup, since everyone answered the soaking question...try adding a tablespoon of creamy peanut butter to the soup. It gives the soup a great creamy taste.
You may want to bind your soup by making a bit of roux, using the broth to turn it into a thin paste, and then stirring it into the soup. This will hold the vegetable solids in suspension and keep them from settling to the pan bottom.
If you use enough split peas, you don't have to bind the soup. But it's a good technique to learn. Besides, who can argue with "The Joy of Cooking"? That's where I learned the technique so many years past.
You can freeze it as long as your recipe does not include potatoes (my grandmother put potatoes in hers) because potatoes don't freeze well IMHO. I think they become watery and the texture becomes grainy.
I freeze mine all the time, even with the potatoes. Also, I don't soak my peas first either and my soup is FULLY cooked in two hours, from start to finish.