South Carolina · Main
Lowcountry Hoppin' John
- Intermediate
- 1 h 30 m
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with wood-smoke running underneath, fresh herbs arguing happily on top.
Ingredients
- 400g dried field peas or black-eyed peas, soaked
- 1 smoked ham hock
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 celery ribs, diced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp thyme
- 300g long-grain rice
- 1L water or stock
- Salt, black pepper, and hot sauce
- Chopped scallions
The skills inside
Soaking dried goods back to life
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: celery
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Simmer the drained peas with the ham hock, onion, celery, bay, and thyme in the water 45 min until tender. 45 min
- Pull the hock, shred its meat, and return it to the pot.
- Stir in the rice, adding water if needed to cover by a finger, and season.
- Cover and cook 18-20 min until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed. 20 min
- Rest 10 min, fluff, and serve with scallions and hot sauce. 10 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Riesling or Grenache
- Also Right
- Cru Beaujolais
- From the Taps
- Farmhouse saison
- Zero-Proof
- Cloudy apple juice, chilled
Pork loves fruit and gentle sweetness: orchard-note whites and low-tannin reds flatter it where heavy oak flattens.
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