I hope you ate your black eyed peas for luck this year. I know some people who eat them immediately following midnight, to be sure to maximize their luck, but I am a little more lackadaisical. As long as I eat them on New Year’s Day, I think I am OK.
I have about 4 or 5 regular black-eyed pea recipes, in regular rotation. This year we added collard greens to the black eyes in the final minutes of cooking, and served the whole mess with cornbread.
I used the cornbread recipe from the January 2007 Food & Wine Magazine. The only alteration I made was to substitute an equal amount of Gluten Free Pantry French Bread and Pizza Mix for the flour used in the recipe.
BLACK EYED PEAS WITH GREENS
1 pound dried black eyed peas
2 smoked ham hocks
1 large Spanish or other sweet onion
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
1 bunch collard or turnip greens
salt to taste
I cooked the beans in the slow cooker, although you can easily adapt this for stove-top or oven cooking.
Heat a medium saucepan overr medium heat.
Add oil to pan and allow to warm. Add onions and cook until onions are golden and just beginning to brown. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add stock and water and bring to a boil.
Add the black-eyed peas and ham hocks to the bottom of the slow cooker insert and pour the boiling stock and onion mixture over it. Cook on high for 7 hours, or until the beans are swollen and soft and the liquid has thickened and is somewhwat viscuous. You may have to drain off some of the liquid and boil it in a separate pan at the end of cooking if it does not thicken in your slow cooker.
When the beans are done, remove the ham hocks from the pan and set aside. You may discard the entire ham hock or you may retrieve the meat before discarding the fat and bone. Chop the meat and add it back into the bean pot for additional flavor.
Remove beans from heat or turn slow cooker to low.
Wash greens and cut leaves into narrow strips and set aside. Before stirring greens into bean pot, skim off any fat that has settled on the surface of the beans. Add salt to taste. Stir in the greens and allow to warm for a few minutes, just long enough to wilt the greens. Serve.