I prefer using a ham bone for split pea- or bean- soup. Ham hocks are a good substitute. If they don’t have much meat in them I can see adding some chopped ham steak… but a meaty ham bone is really ideal. (I generally get the butt cuts because they have more meat, even though they are more awkward to carve. Leftover hunks of meat-and-bone go into the soup, so they’re hardly wasted. When I have such, I boil the bone-plus-meat for 2+ hours in water with bay leaves, then cool the bones/meat and pull off the meat, to be added to the soup when it’s pretty much done.)

This looks like a good way to use up some of the chives we’ll have in a few months.

I’m not sure about the shrimp either. It seemed surprisingly subtle to me, and I think the cost-per-nom factor is just a bit too high. We’re probably better off saving it for the gumbo.

This is the first time I’ve tried using shrimp in the recipe, and I’m not sure yet it really adds anything. I’ll see after I’ve eaten a few more.

I’d like to try to make a vegetarian version of this, perhaps using mushrooms and mung bean sprouts instead of pork. It might also be interesting to try a batch using Quorn “chicken tenders” that have gone through the food processor.