Friday, January 24, 2014

Beans and Ham Hock Soup

This recipe sounds kind of gross, but it's actually really good (especially for beans!). I got it off the bob's red mill bean package.

Ingredients:
2 cups bean blend
2 1/2 quarts water (best with broth)
ham hock or ham shank
1 cup chopped onion
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce or 1 qt tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp- 1 TBSP chili powder
garlic, minced


Directions:
Wash beans then soak overnight. In the morning drain, rinse and bring water, beans and ham hock to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered, 3-3 1/2 hours. Add onion, tomato sauce/tomatoes, and seasonings. Simmer 30 minutes.

Once everything is cooked, I take the ham hock out and pull off the meat and put it back into the soup, throwing away the bone and other non edible parts.

4 comments:

Rachel Rowell said...

Fyi, just plain ham will not do in this recipe. The flavor will be lacking significantly.

Sharon said...

What exactly is a ham hock? I have the remains of a honey baked ham in my freezer and i don't know what to do with it. Would this work?

Rachel Rowell said...

It won't be the same with a honey baked ham. The shank/hock of the ham has a lot of cartilage (and various other gross stuff) that gives the dish tons of flavor. You are only getting a bit of flavor from the meat, you need the other stuff found in this cut to get the really good flavor.

Pasta and ham work really well together though :) There's that ham and pasta casserole on the blog that we eat all the time at my house.

Rachel Rowell said...

This is a note to myself. The second time I made it it was much more runny. Not sure if I added too much liquid the second time, too little the first time or I boiled off the water by simmering without the lid the first time.