Today's Cooking

[ysabetwordsmith]

Today we're making Hoppin' John from The Way Home, a Gullah Geechee cookbook. This online recipe is fairly similar. We're using smoked pork neck bones for the meat flavor. Hoppin' John can be made with a wide variety of smoked odds'n'ends.


EDIT 11/29/22 -- Both of us agreed that this was the best Hoppin' John we have had. The flavor was wonderful and not excessively spicy or salty. But it was sooo much work, and it made way more than we need. :/ I think we'll keep this as a base recipe and look for ways to make it easier without undermining the flavor.

The smoked pork neck worked way better than other things we've tried in the past like ham hocks. There was more meat, it cooked down tender, and the bones came out. I didn't add any salt when cooking the black-eyed peas because the meat was salt-cured, and that came out just right. \o/ Of course, this would probably work with chopped bacon or other cured meat if we can't find smoked neck again. But we've got enough for one more batch.

Next time, I would presoak the black-eyed peas so they don't take as long to cook. However, if you're looking for a recipe that accommodates "I forgot to soak the peas overnight" then this is good for that. As it is, I started early and we wound up having supper way late.  Not optimum.

I don't think that draining and cooling them was the best idea either. They congealed into a lump and that made it harder to combine them with the rice toward the end. Keeping them in their liquid on "warm" would probably have worked better.

The rice came out gummy. Rinsing it before cooking it might have helped, but we really didn't have time for that while juggling other stuff. Getting rice to come out right is not easy.

Using some of the water from the black-eyed peas to make the rice certainly added flavor. No bland rice problem.

Possibly we could just put all the flavorings into the beans and pour them over brown rice like we do with other recipes.

Half of the recipe (which started with 2 cups of black-eyed peas and 2 cups of rice) would have been more than enough. So we can cut it in half. However, if you want to feed the masses, this recipe is good for that.

We have ideas for tweaking, and since the flavor was so good, we'll probably try this again.

Comments

[dreamy]

I looove Hoppin' John, though I've only ever had it canned or prepared by someone else. Thanks for linking the similar recipe.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

My favorite was a box mix from Uncle Ben's, but they stopped making that. :( Subsequent attempts to replicate the effects have been hit-or-miss due to the extreme variety in recipes.