Rinse the split peas in water. Examine the peas to makes sure that there are no bad peas. Then pour the peas into a large pot and fill with about 3 quarts of cold water. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat and let cool for 1 hour. Leave the peas in the water.

After the peas have cooled for an hour, remove the root and skin of the onion, and stab the onion with 2 cloves (pro tip- put them next to each other). Add the onion and the celery, carrots, bay leaf, and ham bone to the water with the peas. You want to ham bone to be submerged in the water, add more water if necessary. Then bring to a simmer, and let simmer for 4 hours. Stir occasionally.

After simmering the soup for 4 hours, remove the bay leaf, the piece of onion with the cloves, and the ham bone. Remove any meat from the ham bone and add it back to the soup.

Lastly, you need to puree the soup. Do this is small batches being careful not to overfill your blender. I recommend not filling your blender more than ⅓ at once. You could opt to use an immersion blender instead.

If you want to serve the soup with crispy prosciutto, place slices of prosciutto on a parchment lined baking sheet and let cook for 12 minutes, or until the prosciutto had hardened. Let it cool and then crumbled it.

Add a touch of cream or ¼ cup of milk to each serving of soup as you pour it into bowls. Top with crispy prosciutto.