Vegan gammon and pease pudding recipe: Vegan MoFo

I think it's technically impossible for me to say pease pudding without following it with 'pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold, pease pudding in the pot nine days old'.

If you think that sounds like gibberish, you'd be right. It's a nursery rhyme that comes from the 18th century and until not too many decades ago would be a song that all little kids would have known. I remember singing it before having any idea of what pease pudding actually was!

But, like pease pudding itself, the nursery rhyme has fallen out of favour.

I'm not surprised. I remember my parents eating this weird gelatinous yellow crap out of a can and telling me it was pease pudding. Sure, I thought, like I'm putting that odd jaundiced wallpaper paste in my mouth. And that's where my relationship with pease pudding began and ended.

For this Vegan MoFo, I decided to get reacquainted, hoping it wouldn't be one of those awkward meetings after years of absence like when the kid who used to suck your hair at primary school gets back in contact on Facebook.

What's even in pease pudding, I wondered.

Turns out it's super simple:

You get half a bag of yellow split peas (225g over here) and chuck it in an ovenproof dish, add a bayleaf, an onion cut into sixths and a large carrot chopped into quarters. Barely cover with stock, then cover with foil. Bake in the oven at 180C for an hour or an hour and a half until it's until breaking down into a thick porridgey mixture. Blend for a bit if you like.

Traditionally, you would have served it with roast gammon - and handily there's a vegan equivalent out there in the form of Redwoods gammon-style roast, which is what I've used here.

It's way better than I ever remember - rich and comforting. I guess I should have given pease a chance earlier.