I made ham shanks and black eyed peas today in the slow cooker. I normally use ham hocks, but they didn’t have any at the store. Turned out well, but I prefer the hocks. Shanks are easier to get the meat off of though.
Anyway, I have 12 oz. of salt pork and 1½ pounds of dry pinto beans. I think I’ll make pork and beans tomorrow. (Beans freeze well. ) I don’t want to make sweet pork’n’beans like you get in the tin. I’d rather just have pork’n’beans. But speaking of the tins, they all have a single piece of pork fat about 1 cm square in them. That doesn’t seem like enough for home-made.
So how much salt pork should I use to make my pork’n’beans?
I’d use about 3-4 ounces of salt pork for one pound of beans. Salt pork freezes well, so just bag it and stick it in the freezer until you need it again.
Thanks. For 1½ pounds of beans, I’ve used 6 oz. of salt pork. We’ll see how it turns out in about eight hours.
But speaking of salt pork…
ISTR a cartoon (Bugs Bunny? Daffy Duck?) that took place on a wooden ship that was pitching and rolling in the swells. A character (Yosemite Sam?) was seasick. The ‘rascal’ character said evilly, ‘How’d you like a nice greasy piece of salt pork?’ Was that indeed a cartoon? Or was it a live-action comedy from the '80s? Anyway, it’s still a line that I use whenever a friend feels nauseated.
The scene was between Tweety and Sylvester in a shipboard cartoon. Sylvester was seasick and Tweety offered him some salt pork. Sylvester stuttered “s-salt p-pork,” turned green and leaned over the railing.
Well, the pork’n’beans turned out well. They did come out tasting a bit like the ham shanks and black eyed peas (with the differences in flavour of the beans, and the lack of smokiness of course), so I tried a bowl with some catsup in it. It’s good.
) I don’t want to make sweet pork’n’beans like you get in the tin. I’d rather just have pork’n’beans. But speaking of the tins, they all have a single piece of pork fat about 1 cm square in them. That doesn’t seem like enough for home-made.