Post by PVP on Jan 10, 2011 17:12:36 GMT -5
I don't know what other folks mean by Hoppin' John or how they make it, and in fact, I don't really give a damn. This is how I do it, and it's the best I ever had ...
Boil a chicken or a good amount of cheap chicken parts. The chicken should be boiled with a couple of high quality smoked ham hocks ... not those awful petrified stanky kinds, but real high quality, fresh smoke ham hocks ... two or three bay leaves, a half onion, a couple ribs of celery or equal celery trimmings, and a carrot or two chunked up. Also a small handful of peppercorns and a tad of cumin powder and maybe a tsp. of salt per gallon water.
The water should almost cover the whole chicken, or if you're using chicken parts, say about 3 pounds, there should be 1 gallon of water involved.
Strain the broth. Reserve and cool the chicken for use as chicken salad. Reserve the ham hocks to put back in the Hoppin' John. Let the broth cool and skim off the excess fat, but leave a little bit for flavoring.
Okay, now soak a pound of dried blackeyed peas in the warmed up chicken broth ... I mean bring the broth to a very slight simmer and dump in the blackeyes after you have picked them over to remove any pebbles or stupid looking beans. Don't boil the beans at this point, let them soak in the warm broth until they swell up nice and plump.
Meanwhile dice up some real good smoked jowl bacon and begin to fry it. While the bacon bits are frying, dice some onion, bell pepper, celery and carrots ... about two cups of each ... and hold in a bowl until the bacon is about halfway fried up.
Drain off the excess bacon fat, and dump the diced veggies in the fryin' pan with the bacon and sweat them out limp. Then dump the bacon and veggies into the bean pot and begin to slowly simmer the entire thing. There should be enough broth to swell the beans and still have an inch or two of brothy soup above the beans. Don't stir too much or the beans will fall to pieces. Just make sure you keep the heat low so the beans don't stick.
Now, you can do this a few ways, and each one requires a certain degree of soupiness or thickness ...
1) You can soup cook the beans until they are tender but not completely falling apart, add the chopped up ham hock meat back into the soup, thicken the soup up if necessary with a packet of brown gravy mix (or roux if you're all that enthusiastic about being traditional cajun) and serve it over top of steamed white rice. This should be thicker than soup. Kinda like stir up the beans until they begin to break apart and there's a good, thick, gravy-like texture to about 1/3 the mass; or
2) You can toss a few handfuls of white rice into the soup and cook it until the rice is tender. If you do, I'd use "converted" rice cuz it cooks better in soup. This can remain soupier and be eaten as a soup or stew or you can crumble in some cornbread at the table; or
3) You can add in the rice, simmer until the rice is al-dente, put it a lid on the kettle and put the whole mess in the oven, and bake it off real low and slow like jambalaya, which is basically what it all is in the first damn place. This requires you carefully judge the broth content so when you put the beans in the oven, there still is some loose broth floating on top, but as the mess bakes out, it eventually becomes more like baked beans in consistency.
Just make sure you use enough jowl bacon and ham hock to flavor the beans up real good. And for goodness sakes don't use water to thin it out ... use only chicken stock or some other meat stock if you have to add water.
Spices and herbs for this are:
Salt to taste
Black pepper
Red pepper
Cumin
Chili powder
Bay leaf
Garlic
... all to taste. Never add too much of anything at once. Don't over spice it. A little bit of ketchup and Worchestershire will give it a mellowness. But not too much. Don't want to overpower the goodness of the smoked pork products and the wonderful blackeyes, crowder peas, cow peas, whatever kind you use.
No fear cookin' ....
Boil a chicken or a good amount of cheap chicken parts. The chicken should be boiled with a couple of high quality smoked ham hocks ... not those awful petrified stanky kinds, but real high quality, fresh smoke ham hocks ... two or three bay leaves, a half onion, a couple ribs of celery or equal celery trimmings, and a carrot or two chunked up. Also a small handful of peppercorns and a tad of cumin powder and maybe a tsp. of salt per gallon water.
The water should almost cover the whole chicken, or if you're using chicken parts, say about 3 pounds, there should be 1 gallon of water involved.
Strain the broth. Reserve and cool the chicken for use as chicken salad. Reserve the ham hocks to put back in the Hoppin' John. Let the broth cool and skim off the excess fat, but leave a little bit for flavoring.
Okay, now soak a pound of dried blackeyed peas in the warmed up chicken broth ... I mean bring the broth to a very slight simmer and dump in the blackeyes after you have picked them over to remove any pebbles or stupid looking beans. Don't boil the beans at this point, let them soak in the warm broth until they swell up nice and plump.
Meanwhile dice up some real good smoked jowl bacon and begin to fry it. While the bacon bits are frying, dice some onion, bell pepper, celery and carrots ... about two cups of each ... and hold in a bowl until the bacon is about halfway fried up.
Drain off the excess bacon fat, and dump the diced veggies in the fryin' pan with the bacon and sweat them out limp. Then dump the bacon and veggies into the bean pot and begin to slowly simmer the entire thing. There should be enough broth to swell the beans and still have an inch or two of brothy soup above the beans. Don't stir too much or the beans will fall to pieces. Just make sure you keep the heat low so the beans don't stick.
Now, you can do this a few ways, and each one requires a certain degree of soupiness or thickness ...
1) You can soup cook the beans until they are tender but not completely falling apart, add the chopped up ham hock meat back into the soup, thicken the soup up if necessary with a packet of brown gravy mix (or roux if you're all that enthusiastic about being traditional cajun) and serve it over top of steamed white rice. This should be thicker than soup. Kinda like stir up the beans until they begin to break apart and there's a good, thick, gravy-like texture to about 1/3 the mass; or
2) You can toss a few handfuls of white rice into the soup and cook it until the rice is tender. If you do, I'd use "converted" rice cuz it cooks better in soup. This can remain soupier and be eaten as a soup or stew or you can crumble in some cornbread at the table; or
3) You can add in the rice, simmer until the rice is al-dente, put it a lid on the kettle and put the whole mess in the oven, and bake it off real low and slow like jambalaya, which is basically what it all is in the first damn place. This requires you carefully judge the broth content so when you put the beans in the oven, there still is some loose broth floating on top, but as the mess bakes out, it eventually becomes more like baked beans in consistency.
Just make sure you use enough jowl bacon and ham hock to flavor the beans up real good. And for goodness sakes don't use water to thin it out ... use only chicken stock or some other meat stock if you have to add water.
Spices and herbs for this are:
Salt to taste
Black pepper
Red pepper
Cumin
Chili powder
Bay leaf
Garlic
... all to taste. Never add too much of anything at once. Don't over spice it. A little bit of ketchup and Worchestershire will give it a mellowness. But not too much. Don't want to overpower the goodness of the smoked pork products and the wonderful blackeyes, crowder peas, cow peas, whatever kind you use.
No fear cookin' ....