Pork and Beans

Pork and Beans

The very last smoked pork hock hidden in my super-extra-secret personal stash was cooked up with pretty sage-colored pea beans from Full Moon Farm.   This was more of a southern-style pork and beans made with cabbage instead of collards, and is not the New England sugary-style.

I wish I could remember the variety, but all I could recall was that Rachel Z. told me they would cook quickly, so I soaked 3/4 cup of them in water and a tsp. of baking soda overnight and did not pre-cook before adding to the other ingredients.

Here's the recipe: hock, beans, 1/2 sliced red cabbage, 3 sliced garlic cloves, 1 sliced medium onion, and enough stock to almost cover the cabbage - about 3 cups.  Cover and cook at 250f for 5 hours or until the meat falls from the bone.  A slight adjustment for salt at the end yielded a rich, smoky "pot liquor" that was absolutely delicious.  Sadly, the beans did not hold their green hue, but they were perfectly cooked and not mushy.