The Whole Hog: Time for Meatballs!

Well. If you read my last entry (Sausage-making party with Ondine) then you know the happy news that I now have 10 pounds of freshly made sausage in my freezer; this breaks down to approximately 3.5 pounds of spicy Italian, 3.5 pounds of sweet Italian, and 3 pounds of Mexican-style chorizo. That doesn't sound quite as nuts as it did when you heard I was making 15 pounds of sausage with Ondine, now does it? Somehow, when you divide it up at the end, you look at it and say, "Well now, that's really not very much sausage at all. We should have made more!" and then you catch yourself and say "Get a grip, girl."

So now that we have all that great product in the freezer, it's time to do something with it. In addition to the 3/4 of a pig in the freezer, I also have 1/8 of a grass-fed, organic cow I bought from Mike and Sally Gale of Chileno Beef (http://www.chilenobnb.com/beef.html) in there. Let me be frank; since reading about how industrial beef cows are processed in Fast Food Nation I will never buy pre-packaged, commercially ground hamburger again. And after I read about how meat animals are raised commercially in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma I have tried very, very hard to buy all of my meat directly from ranchers. So it's a darned nice thing to reach in my freezer and take out a pound of hamburger that I know is safe, sustainable, healthy, and delicious, take off the compostable paper (!) wrapper, and get to work. Today's Menu: meatballs.

I like meatballs. I really do. Once again, however, here is a tasty food item where you look at most of the recipes and say to yourself "Self, that looks like waaay too much work. Next!" You know, grate, soak, mix, shape, THEN brown, THEN braise. So, when I found this recipe a few years ago, I was sold. It skips the browning step, instead braising them in some good quality canned tomatoes, but the flavor - the flavor does not taste like you skipped any steps at all. The sausage adds a delicious complexity to the flavor and texture, the meat juices and Pecorino Romano cheese mix with the tomatoes as they bake and flavor the sauce, the sauce thickens and becomes rich as they bake. It takes very little time to mix these simple ingredients together, and then you pop them in the oven, where they tend to themselves while you make the rest of the meal, stress-free. It's a winner!


Old-Fashioned Meatballs in Red Sauce
adapted from The Simpler the Better by Leslie Revsin with Rick Rodgers
(reprinted in Gourmet Magazine, October 2005)

Serve with a nice batch of soft polenta, over pasta, or on some nice crusty bread - do I need to say more?

For The Meatballs:
1 pound grass-fed ground beef (15% fat)
1/2 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage
1/3 cup plain dry bread crumbs, combined with 1/3 cup water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly grated black pepper
1/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

For The Sauce:
1 large can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes (I highly recommend Muir Glen brand)
1/4 tsp salt
Plenty of freshly ground pepper to taste

Garnish:
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano

Remove meats from the refrigerator 30 to 60 minutes before cooking, if possible. Remove the sausages from their casings. (Ha! Remember what I said in the sausage recipe? Now you can congratulate yourself on NOT putting them in casings!)

Place bread crumbs in a large bowl and stir in 1/3 cup water. When absorbed, blend together with eggs, garlic, 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper.

Pre-heat the oven to 425 F. Add the meats to the bread crumb/egg mixture and combine well with your hands. Form into 16 to 18 even-sized balls. As you make them, lay them in a single layer in the bottom of an 9x13" heavy baking dish, separating them by about 1 inch.

Mix the salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper into the tomatoes, and pour them over and around the meatballs. Then sprinkle the tops with the grated cheese garnish. Bake in the center of the oven until just cooked through, around 20 minutes.

A note on the cheese: Freshly grated cheese really is the tastiest, but pre-grated is alright in a pinch. Please note that if you use a micro-plane (a kitchen must-have!) the volume is greater than with a "regular" grater, so don't be skimpy - there's nothing wrong with a little extra cheese!

Whole Hog: Sausage Making Party with Ondine

When I buy an animal from my rancher friend, Mary Pettis-Sarley, (barngoddess@dishmail.net) one of the first things I think about is sausage. Having a few pounds of sausage in the freezer, whether pork or lamb, is like having a pile of money in the bank. When you come home from work, the gym, ferrying the kid home from swim class or some other event with precious few creative brain cells available to conjure up what you will make for dinner that night, you can quick-thaw some sausages and make something truly tasty in a flash. They are splendid on their own, as a flavoring agent for soups, sauces or beans, combined with vegetables such as broccoli for a filling in a calzone, or served over a delicious whole-grain such as polenta, brown rice, or bulghur wheat - or of course, pasta. With that in mind, I asked the butcher to cut up one of the hams instead of smoking it, with the intention of committing it to sausage-making.

It is indeed true that sausages take some time and effort to make, and there was a time (not so long ago) when I wouldn't have dreamed of making them myself. I still buy and stockpile a number of different flavored sausages that I do not make myself from the local, sustainable charcuterer The Fatted Calf. It's also true that casings are not readily available to the public, and that injecting the filling into the casings adds another time-consuming step. Plus, it seems like most recipes involving sausage seem to start with "first remove the casings from the sausages..." So I say, skip it and make some patties! Joel had some strong feelings in favor of our using casings, so to humor him, we chose to make links out of one of our three varieties. All that said, sausages do not take much high-level skill, and when you grab a friend or two and have a sausage-making party, it's a blast! One person can measure the spices while the other feeds the meat into the grinder. Then one can feed the seasoned, ground meat into the chute while the other makes the links. And finally, one person can make patties while the other makes the packages. Meanwhile, once you've gotten past the brief bit of concentration required to calculate the spicing quantities, you can yak away and get caught up on things while your hands do the work.

So, on a recent school vacation day, I invited my friend Ondine, a 25% stake-holder in this year's Duroc breed pig, to come on over for a sausage-making event. She arrived with five pounds of cubed pork and some seasonings. I, meanwhile, thawed out ten pounds of pork, and checked to see if the casings I purchased from Niman Ranch five years ago, and had been storing in heavily salted water in the deep freeze, were still good - they were (!) I gathered my recipes, doused my meat-grinding attachment for the KitchenAid mixer in boiling water, and got ready to go to work.

Having agreed that Italian-style sausages are one of the major backbones of cooking, we chose sweet and hot Italian sausages to be our main products for the day, and Mexican style chorizo as our third variety. Then, our first order of business was to cut the meat into strips that would fit easily into the feed tube of the grinding attachment for my mixer. As we cut, we assessed whether or not we needed additional fat; we agreed that a little more backfat from my stash was needed to reach the desired ratio of 3/4 of a pound of fat to 3 pounds of meat. (Of course I asked the butcher for all of the fat - I'll be making lard later!)

If you are making sausage, it is easy for your inner Puritan - (or the voice of your mother) - to jump in and say "No! No more fat! No, I said NO! That's enough!" But here's why it's necessary to hush that joy-killer up: first, be aware that home-made sausage is way leaner than most store-bought sausage. Bruce Aidells, in his Complete Book of Sausage, states that commercial sausage can contain from 30 to 50% fat. His recipes, meanwhile, range from 15 to 25% fat; compare that to the ratio for store-bought lean hamburger, which is 15-22%. When you cook the sausages, the fat melts right out and can be drained off (or left in for flavoring or as a sauce base.) However, if you decide to craft lean sausages, there is no fat to be released in cooking, so, needing to give off something, the sausages give off their other juices instead, leaving you with a very dry, tough, piece of (well-spiced) meat. Also, do you remember the discussion of good pig fat in the introductory "Whole Hog" entry? (http://foodierthanthou.blogspot.com/2010/01/whole-hog-around-pig-in-80-ways.html) Executive summary: pig fat is much better for you than you might think. If you've bought a nice, clean living pig, why not indulge in a little of its tasty fat?



Here are our recipes:

New York-Style Spicy Hot Sausage
from Bruce Aidells' Complete Book of Sausage


This is a well balanced spicy sausage - a great all-purpose blend which goes well in tomato sauce, on pizza, or with broccoli.


3 lbs pork butt, cut into long pieces, about 1" wide
3/4 lb pork back fat
2 TB anise-flavored liqueur, such as Sambuca (optional)
2 TB anise or fennel seeds
1 TB minced garlic
1 TB red pepper flakes
4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup water, as needed
Medium hog casings


Combine the pork and fat with the liqueur, anise seeds, garlic, red pepper, salt, black pepper, and cayenne in a large bowl. Grind everything through a 3/8" plate. Moisten with the water, and squeeze and knead the mixture until it is well blended. Stuff into casings, and tie into 5" links (or make into 1/4 lb. patties.) The sausage will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator, or 2 to 3 months in the freezer.



Tavella Family's Sausage
from Sunset Magazine, November 2003

This sweet sausage is unusual in its use of cinnamon and nutmeg as its main seasonings. This gives it a lovely aromatic, nuanced flavor.

1/4 cup dry red wine
2 tsp pickling spice (bay leaf, juniper berry, mustard seed, whole allspice, peppercorns, whole cloves,whole mace, cinnamon stick, cardamom seeds, pepper flakes, ginger)
5 lb ground pork butt (shoulder) including around 20% fat
2 TB salt
1 1/2 TB fresh ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg


Step 1: In a small saucepan, bring wine and pickling spice to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Pour through a strainer into a large bowl; discard solids.

Step 2: Add ground pork, salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg to the bowl. Mix very thoroughly with your hands to distribute spices evenly.

Step 3: Shape about 1/3 cup (3 oz.) pork mixture into an oval-shaped patty about 1/2" thick. Place on a waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Shape remaining mix into patties, separating them with layers of waxed paper.


Homemade Chorizo
from California Rancho Cooking by Jacqueline Higuera McMahan

Ms. McMahan, an eighth generation Californian, grew up on one of the last Spanish land grant ranchos in the San Francisco Bay Area; this is one of her family recipes. The classic way to eat this tasty sausage is with eggs and tortillas.

2 lbs. boneless pork with some fat
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp cumin seed, crushed very fine
1 TB sea salt
4 to 6 TB powdered red chile, preferably New Mexican, Californian, or mixed, or powdered red chile and pureed chipotle en adobo
1 to 2 tsp chile seeds, reserved from whole chiles (optional)
1/4 cup paprika
1/2 cup red wine or cider vinegar
2 TB port wine

Grind the pork, using the coarse plate in the meat grinder.

Combine all of the spices, then add to the ground meat and work it in well with your hands. Let the mixture meld in the refrigerator for 24 hours; the flavors will intensify as it sits. Freeze excess in either patties, or small packages.

Christine's notes: Due to the high content of spices and liquids, this sausage is very loose and will fall apart when cooked. The vinegary scent as this cooks is divine....

"Drink Me!" Artemesia Cocktail Hour: Ginger Twist

Almost immediately after letting friends know that I had posted my new Grapefruit Margarita recipe, a desperate plea came in from my friend Ginger: "For the love of God, Woman! The future of humanity depends on your designing a new cocktail using the Artemesia Ginger Liqueur - Stat!" At least I think that's how she put it... perhaps the exact wording escapes me.....

Well, with a challenge like that before me, I certainly had no choice - none whatsoever - as to what I'd be doing next. I fell asleep that night thinking about what tastes great with ginger; immediately came the thought - ginger and lemon! And I researched proportions, and sampled and tinkered, and served the results to family and friends. Tirelessly, we all gave it up for the good of humanity. Last night, at last, came the perfection I sought. And here, before you, the results. The Meyer lemon* juice, a common varietal in California backyards, brings a refreshing lemon lift, tempered by its characteristic sweet notes, while the ginger liqueur gives a pleasing, long finish with warmth that you feel all the way down.


Artemesia Ginger Twist

Makes two cocktails

2 1/2 ounces Artemesia Ginger Liqueur
1 1/2 ounces Artemesia Limoncello
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce Meyer Lemon Juice*


Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake until it's really cold; I like to count to about "20 Mississippi." Pour, garnish with an optional lemon twist, and enjoy!


*The Meyer lemon is a sweet, thin-skinned California native. Said to be a cross between a tangerine and a lemon, it grows beautifully and prolifically in many a backyard. They are not generally available commercially, and seldom outside of California. Should you not have access, you can ask a California neighbor to share, or a friend to mail some to you. If you need to substitute with another varietal, you may need to adjust the quantity, or add a little sweetener.

"Drink Me!" Artemesia Cocktail: Grapefruit Margarita

I admit it; I'm obsessed. At this very moment I have Limoncello, Rosemary Meyer Limoncello, Kumquat, Buddha's Hand Citron, Blood Orange, Ginger, Bergamot Citron, and Oro Blanco Grapefruit liqueurs infusing in my basement. I also have finished batches of Walnut liqueurs; Nocino and Orahovica (the Vin de Noix is gone) Chocolate, more Buddha's Hand Citron, and "Brad and Darryl's" Grapefruit liqueurs. I call my little obsession "Artemesia;" I guess giving it a name says something, eh? I try to grow as much of the fruit as possible, which is challenging, as our entire lot, including the 1,200 square feet occupied by our house, is about 1/32nd of an acre. So far, I have crammed in a lime tree (the Bearss variety grows really well here in Berkeley, and yes, that really is how you spell it) a Buddha's Hand Citron (because you just can't buy them organic) and newly planted Fuyu Persimmon, Blenheim Apricot, Meiwa Kumquat, and Feminello Santa Teresa Lemon trees (because the Feminello Santa Teresa is the rare sub-cultivar grown in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast for Limoncello.)

Since my obsession far outstrips my available land, last year I started harvesting from what I have dubbed "NIMBY" fruit trees; "Not In My Back Yard." Nina lets me gather her Meyer Lemons, Bob lets me pick his mystery lemons (Eureka or Lisbon? Don't know...) neighbors let me gather green walnuts from a street tree growing in a secret cul de sac, and Brad and Darryl invited me to pick their grapefruits - another unknown varietal. They have a big old tree, with lots of fruit...perhaps I did get a little carried away...

Anyway, it's all quite delicious on its own, but sometimes a gal wants a cocktail, and I love a good Margarita. A Margarita is typically made from tequila, fresh lime juice, and triple sec, in a myriad of proportional possibilities; 2:2:1, 3:2:1, 1:1:1... Triple Sec is a liqueur flavored with three different types of oranges; I have yet to find one that I really like - mostly they taste kind of, well - cheap. Cointreau, Grand Marnier or Citronge all make decent substitutes. After experimenting, ahem, quite a bit, I decided that I like 3:2:1, i.e. 3 parts tequila, two parts fresh lime juice, 1 part orange liqueur.

Of course, I got to thinking.... why orange? Why not some other citrus? Obviously, I have a number of fine options available to me. Grapefruit "Brad and Darryl" immediately came to mind; assertive, clean - and completely different from lime. So I decided to start there, and, well, yum! (Otherwise, you wouldn't be hearing about it, right? I will only share recipes which are worthy of the ages here in this blog. Should I waste your precious time describing disappointing results from a new recipe? I think not!) So get out your cocktail shakers, and let's get this party started!


Artemesia Grapefruit Margarita

Makes 1 big or 2 smallish drinks; make each pour a generous one if you want bigger drinks

3 ounces Tequila (Your choice)
2 ounces fresh-squeezed lime juice
1 ounce Grapefruit "Brad and Darryl" liqueur
1/2 tsp or so agave nectar or sugar, to taste

Squeeze your limes; you will need from 1-4 of them, depending on how juicy they are. Put a little kosher salt on a plate. Measure everything and pour the ingredients into your cocktail shaker. Add a little additional sweetener, stir it up and taste it; adjust as needed. Using any leftover lime juice, smear some lightly on the outside of the rim of your chosen glass(es)- I use Martini glasses - and roll the outer rim in the salt. Add a few ice cubes to the cocktail shaker, put on the lid, and shake away until it feels really cold; I usually count to "20 Mississippi." While you're shaking, make sure to hold the lids on! Now take off the cap and pour out every delicious drop.

Cheers!

p.s. If you would like some Grapefruit "Brad and Darryl," drop me a line!

"Berkleyer Than Thou" Cookies

One day when Johanna was in preschool, we were hanging out at our neighborhood "tot lot" in Berkeley with her friend Faith, Faith's little sister Grace, and their Dad, Patrick. In the custom of such play-dates, Patrick and I sat on the park bench, holding an adult conversation interspersed with conflict resolution breaks, and Patrick told me a memorable story about a similar afternoon he had spent in a local park with the girls. As is common, he and another mother struck up a conversation on the park bench. As is also common - in Berkeley - it rapidly became a game of P.C. one-upsmanship. This is how it went:

He got out organic store-bought snacks for his girls, the Other Mother's (hereinafter known as "OM") were homemade. He mentioned that they were Vegetarians, "OM" said her family was Vegan. He said that his family had only one car, "OM" said her's went everywhere by bicycle. He bought his family's produce at the Farmers' Market, "OM" grew their own. He bought local, organic, whole grain bread, "OM" made her own. He used natural disposable diapers, "OM" used cloth. And so it went, on and on, until Patrick finally laughed and said "You win!"

As I laughingly reflected on the story, an expression formed itself in my mind: "Berkeleyer Than Thou." And when I was looking for a good name for the super healthy, nutritious cookies I had devised, that seemed like just the perfect one.

At that time, Johanna weighed about 30 pounds, was a fussy eater, and I was trying to figure out how to cram maximum nutrition into every bite she ate. I looked for a cookie recipe that would work with my new food strategy, but still be tasty enough that she would want to eat them. At last, I found one that I thought would accommodate my "master plan." Then I tinkered with it, altering and cramming until I reached its limits of structural integrity. The results are an excellent alternative to energy bars and their disposable packaging.

Now, I'll be frank: this cookie could be "Berkeleyer;" it's not Vegan (there are eggs in it) it's not gluten-free, it contains chocolate, and it uses cane sugar. If you wish to be even Berkeleyer than me, please feel free to break out your spelt flour, agave or yacon nectar and carob chips, and figure out how to replace the egg with silken tofu. There's always a way to be "Berkeleyer Than Thou!"


"Berkeleyer Than Thou" Cookies
Makes 4 Baker's Dozen cookies

Use as many organic ingredients as you can, otherwise your playground bragging rights decline.

½ cup peanut butter (or other nut butter)
½ cup shortening (trans-fat free, of course) or butter
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup molasses
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 2 TB warm water
1 TB dry milk powder or plain whey protein powder
1 TB soy protein concentrate
1 tsp wheat germ
1 cup plus 2 TB whole wheat flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 cup sweetened coconut
12 oz chocolate chips
2/3 cups nuts or seeds of your choice (pumpkin seeds are a good source of iron and vitamin E)
1 cup raisins

Cream the shortening and nut butter together. Add the sugar, molasses and eggs and beat until well-mixed. Mix in the baking soda solution and vanilla. In another bowl, whisk the flour, wheat germ, milk powder, soy protein, and salt to combine, and then add to the liquids. Mix well. Now, mixing in one ingredient at a time, add the oats, coconut, chocolate chips, nuts and raisins until well combined.

Drop rounded teaspoons on a baking sheet and flatten and spread with a fork. Bake at 375 F oven for 8-10 minutes, or until they are firm. Cool on racks.

These cookies are tastiest when fresh, so I like to make “freezer cookies;” divide the dough into 4 equal portions, placing it on parchment paper or wax paper. Use the paper to roll it into a firm log. Wrap well in the parchment and a plastic bag (the wrapper from your newspaper is just the right shape) and freeze until needed. Then cut into disks and flatten with a fork. I bake them for 15 minutes at 375 F when the dough is cold or frozen.

The Whole Hog: Corn Muffins

When I was growing up, my mother had an empty coffee can which she kept on the stove; into it would go the bacon-fat drippings. I don't remember eating that much bacon, frankly, but somehow the can always seemed to have plenty in it. As hard as it is to believe now that she is such an enthusiast of oat bran and flax seed meal, my mother would use those drippings to cook with and flavor different dishes. When I was really little we had only one car, which my Daddy would take to work. If my mother ran out of something as she was cooking - oh, well. Canned goods therefore figured prominently in her cooking. The two things I most remember her using the bacon fat to flavor were canned green beans, (which though khaki colored, salty and soft from the canning process, I remember as delicious) and corn bread.

Although my mother no longer saves bacon drippings, I do. I have a little glass container in the refrigerator, and I use it for corn bread, and occasionally when I sautée vegetables for pea soup and the like. Of course, I don't use it that often; most of my cooking is done with olive oil, but a couple of spoonfuls of drippings in the right place can bring so much flavor.

In my last posting I promised I would provide a recipe for corn bread to go with the Hoppin' John. The recipe I am including here (which is both a Whole Hog recipe and goes with one, too) is a classic from the fine New England cookbook Fannie Farmer. Fannie Farmer ran a cooking school in Boston, and was a pioneer in the standardization of recipes. This cookbook, which was most recently revised by Marion Cunningham, rivals The Joy of Cooking as a useful all-purpose cookbook. (Of course, it lacks instructions for skinning a squirrel, but still...) My Grammie Staples had what I believe was the first edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook, which my mother will forever regret throwing away when it became tatty. Some of the recipes I share most frequently with friends are excellent standards from this book, and I'm sure I will be sharing the Banana Nut Bread and Indian Pudding recipes with you all at some point.

This recipe comes together so quickly; while your dish is finishing off, you can grease the pan and mix the batter in 5-10 minutes, then throw them into the oven for 15 minutes. When your dish is done, you'll have hot, tasty muffins to go with it. If you don't have a ton of people at the table, and exercise even a modicum of self-control, you'll even have a few left over for breakfast. If you do, heat them up in the toaster oven and cut them open, slather with sweet butter and honey or jam. They are best served HOT.

But first, a word about corn meal: Corn is one of the foodstuffs on the marketplace most likely to be GMO - "genetically modified organisms." According to a US government survey, 80-86% of all corn planted between 2000 and 2009 was from genetically modified seed. Organic foods, however, are not GMO. If you wish to avoid GMO's in your food, please be sure to seek out organically grown corn meal.

Fannie Farmer's Corn Bread

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
2 TB melted bacon fat (or non-transfat shortening, if you must)

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Grease a muffin pan. Mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Melt the bacon fat in a small glass or ceramic bowl in the microwave. When it is liquid, beat in the egg with a fork until it is well blended; this keeps the bacon fat from congealing again. Now mix the milk into the egg mixture, and pour the liquids into the corn/flour mix. Stir with the fork or a wooden spoon until well-blended, then fill the muffin cups half-way, scraping the last of the batter with a spatula. You will have just enough to make 12 muffins. Now pop the pan in the oven and bake until the tops are just turning golden, about 15 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edge of each muffin, and pop them out into a basket or bowl lined with a towel to keep them warm. Serve hot with butter.

These muffins are great not only with Hoppin' John, but also corn chowder, chili con carne, and soups, and also make delicious sweet or savory sandwiches.

Enjoy!

The Whole Hog: Starting the New Year Right with Hoppin' John

As a native Bay Stater, daughter of a 15th generation Yankee father and a German immigrant mother, black-eyed peas did not figure prominently in my food experience. In fact, it was not until an accidental delivery of frozen hog jowls that I gave them much thought at all.

After finding the perfect recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara alla Romana, which calls for the cured but unsmoked Italian bacon called guanciale, (ooh, do you sense a future post coming on?) I ordered some from the Niman Ranch website. But what arrived was raw, frozen hog jowls - 20 pounds of them! When the nice customer service rep arranged to send me the missing guanciale, she declined to take back the (rapidly thawing) package of raw jowls. I seasoned them, Joel smoked them on the Weber, and I began asking around. What do you do with a windfall of smoked hog jowls?

That's when I learned from our neighbors, Betty and Jimmy, about Hoppin' John, a dish of black-eyed peas, stewed with smoked pork and served over rice. Betty and Jimmy are southern transplants, where eating this dish on New Year's Eve or Day is said to bring you good luck. Although you can make it with ham hocks, salt pork, or slab bacon, smoked hog jowls is traditional in Alabama, where Betty and Jimmy grew up. More recently, I learned from my friend Nina, who grew up in North Carolina, that you really need to eat this dish with stewed greens, because that will bring you "folding money" in the new year.

Hoppin' John is a dish which originated in the African-American community, with former slaves. The origin of the name "Hoppin' John" is quite obscure; many legends abound involving one-legged men named John, enthusiastic diners hopping to the table and the like, but the most compelling explanation I have come across involves the Haitian Creole word pois à pigeons (pigeon peas.)

There are many recipes out there, from the very simple to the not-quite-as-simple, and I have found all the different versions I have made to be tasty. However, this year's version, using part of a meaty smoked jowl from our pig, along with leftover ham and a ham-bone from last year's pig, was the tastiest I've made yet. The recipe has plenty of room to improvise, so please fee free.


Hoppin' John

(It goes without saying - although here I am saying it! - that as many of these ingredients should be organic as possible.)

1 lb (2 1/2 cups) black-eyed peas, picked over and rinsed
1 large bay leaf
1 small dried hot red chile, or 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
A ham bone - if you have one, ham removed and reserved
2-4 oz smoked hog jowl, chopped into 1/4" dice, or bacon
2 medium onions, chopped
4+ cloves garlic, minced (it's hard to add too much)
2-4 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
2-4 stalks celery, diced
Leftover ham, if you have it, chopped into nice chunks
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and salt to taste
1 TB Worcestershire sauce
1 TB Hot sauce
Cayenne to taste


(If you don't have any leftover ham or a bone, a nice big smoked ham hock brings a lot to the party. Many food-centric towns have meat artistes who are dedicated to sustainably raised meats; Fatted Calf of Napa sells at Berkeley and SF farmer's markets, e.g. Ask around.)

Serve with: cooked rice, a nice vinegary hot sauce (like Tobasco), collard, mustard or turnip greens, or kale, cooked separately.

Oh, and hot corn bread with butter! (I guess that needs to be the next post....)


A note on the rice: in general, I am a brown rice enthusiast. However, for this recipe, we splurged and had white rice, which has a much more neutral flavor. And you're already getting a ton of fiber from the peas...


If time permits, begin soaking your black-eyed peas the night before, or first thing in the morning, in water to cover by two inches. Or, use the quick-soak method: cover with two inches of water in a five or six quart, heavy stock pot, bring to a boil, boil for two minutes, then turn off the heat, cover the pot and let sit for an hour.

(If you will be using a ham hock, be aware that they take longer to cook than the peas do. You'll need to start cooking the hock separately in water 1 1/2 to 2 hours before you start cooking the peas, and then use the broth as your soup base. Then let them cool, remove and chop the meat, and discard the skin, bones and cartilage. Drain your peas, and add the broth and meat to the pot of peas, and begin following from the next steps.)

When your peas are ready to go, drain them (for sure if you are following the hock recipe, optionally if you are not.) Then cover them with water, and add the bay leaf, pepper, and ham bone if you have it. Bring it to a boil, then lower heat, cover, and simmer while you work on the other ingredients. If things get too dry, add a little more water.

Heat up a good sized frying pan over medium heat (cast iron is the best; throw away that toxic non-stick stuff!) and add your chopped hog jowl or bacon. When it's getting all nice and golden and rendering up some nice fat, add the onions and saute, stirring often, until they begin to get a little golden, too. Now add the carrots and celery and garlic, and do the same for them. Make sure they don't burn! Sprinkle on some salt to taste. When everything is beginning to turn a nice color and get tender, scrape the whole thing into your peas, and stir well. Now simmer it all until the peas are tender and the flavors are beginning to meld. Now would be a good time to add your chopped leftover ham, and the two sauces, and then let it all heat up and the flavors meld some more. Now taste it; does it need more salt, pepper, a shake or two of cayenne? Is it a little too thick? Add some water. Too thin? Take out a cup or so of the peas and mash them with the back of a fork, then add them back to the pot. When it's all just the way you like, take out the bay leaf and the ham bone - save it for your favorite dog - put a serving of rice in everyone's bowl, then a nice big helping of the black-eyed peas. When I made this on New Year's Day, everyone loved it, from my father in-law, who gave it his highest compliment: "I might not need to add any salt to this!" to our daughter, who ate the leftovers at every possible meal until it was gone.