Smoky beany goodness with a slab of cornbread on the side…winter comfort food of my yoot…mmmmmmmmmmmm.
This isn’t the smokey goodness you speak of… but I like Campbell’s - straight out of the can, spread on Saltines. Yum!
Yeah, it’s so simple, and so delectable in winter. I like a smoked pork shank cooked in with the beans of one’s choice (red beans for me) for 2-3 hours or until the beans are tender and the shank meat is just about falling off the bone. Saute some garlic and onions separately, and add them to the cooked beans. Keep it soupy for soup, or contrive to let it get thick and serve it on top of rice.
My mother’s bean soup is divine.
I can’t match it, but I make a mean split pea.
[drums fingers with an irritated look] Ummm… Recipes, people??? [/drums fingers with an irritated look]
I found a bean soup recipe that we like a lot. In fact, there’s a single bowl left from the pot I made earlier this week. Very yummy, even if you don’t have a bone to toss in it - I just add some extra ham.
“What’s this?”
“It’s bean soup.”
“Okay, but what is it now?”
for a rootin’ tootin’ good time!!!
What’s that smell?
That sounds delicious! It’s gonna be chilly here this weekend - a perfect time to try that recipe.
I usually use butter beans and smoked hog jowl, slow cooked in the crock pot. Like Chefguy said: perfect comfort food!
I just take a smoked very meaty ham hock (or smoky, meaty substitute), a bunch of navy beans, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, parsley, and throw them in a pot with water to cover. Cook for a couple of hours. Take out the ham hock. Let it cool until you can handle it. Dice up the meat and throw it back in the soup. Mash up some of the beans in the soup to thicken it. Voila. You don’t need to get fancier than this.
teela’s post reminded me–onions and garlic are cooked separately and added at the same time you return the chopped ham hock to the soup.
I use navy beans e.g. “Great Northern”, and soak them overnight, they swell up quite a bit. I like to simmer several hours too. In addition to the usual fare - ham, onion, small amount of carrot, garlic, pepper, etc, I throw in a bay leaf and dry mustard like Coleman’s.
It’s all about the hot lentil soup, I’m telling you guys…
I used to use hamhocks, but got tired of dealing with all the fat skimming. This time I used two smoked pork chops, trimmed well, and a half of a smoked turkey sausage (less than 1/3 the fat of pork sausage), both cut up. Great northerns and small red beans together, about a pound and a half. Did a fast soak on the beans by boiling for two minutes and letting sit covered for an hour, then drain and refill with clean water. While the beans are soaking, coarse cut an onion, couple of celery sticks, peel several cloves of garlic and coarse chop a couple of carrots, crank the oven up to 425 and roast the hell out of them all for about 30-45 minutes with a little olive oil. Dump them on a cutting board and finish chopping, add to the beans along with the pork and simmer for about two hours. Add salt and pepper to the bowl. Pure heaven.
That’s what I’m talkin’ 'bout! Hamhocks and navy beans. Pinto beans in a pinch. With four slices of butter-bread. One of my dad’s specialties.
Is it just me, or are hamhocks like genetically mutated these days? I don’t remember that much meat from my childhood. Not that that’s a bad thing…
A staple in China that I just had tonight is soy beans in a ham hock broth. Toss in some green onions and ginger slices. yummmm
Yes! Whenever I make ham and bean soup here I use cans black and white soy beans. I get a nice big ham hock, add water or stock, the beans, a couple of minced cloves of garlic, and some bay leaf. I simmer this for a couple or three hours, take out the bay leaf and ham hock, mince the ham, add it back (along with some sliced hard boiled egg sometimes), and voila! Soup!
Like Chefguy, I used to use hamhocks too, but they’re mostly fat and skin with only a couple of bites of meat. Nowadays you can find smoked pork shanks everywhere. They weigh a pound or two each, are skinless, and almost fatless. There’s plenty of meat on them, and it’s delicious shank meat, the same type of tissue you get on an osso buco or a lamb shank. They need a two to three hour braise, though, but that’s about the time unsoaked beans take to cook, anyway.
The butcher will always ask if I want the pork shank “cracked”, or sawed into a couple of segments, but I decline. I like to plunk that yummy big club of smoked pork whole into the center of the beans. It looks so rustic.
I’m making up my grocery list right now. Think I’ll add a shank to the list and prepare a “make-ahead” bean dish this weekend, to be reheated in the middle of the week for dinner. Thanks for the inspiration, guys.
Hokay….
One large ham steak. Chop it up. Don’t make it too small, it will dry out.
One onion. Dice it up
Lots’ of different types of white type canned beans. I go for great northern, white kidney beans and chick peas. GOTTA have chick peas (garbanzo beans). One can of each.
My new secrete (or it was a secrete till now)……Artichoke hearts. Chop up a can of artichoke hearts and dump it in there.
Heat. Wallaaaaaa…… Wonderful soup.