Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Mess Hall => Topic started by: K Frame on September 10, 2017, 12:37:27 AM
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First batch of the season! Finally getting cool enough. Can't wait.
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Please post recipe. Ham and bean soup is something Dad has bugged me for, but I never got around to finding a recipe.
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That was a fall and winter staple at my home growing up. Served with cornbread (Jiffy, straight box recipe, baked in muffin tins.) Wish I had mom's recipe... I'm with BSL, Mike. Please share.
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Gotta have lotsa ham in the bean soup. Swmbo also throws in a bunch of bacon.
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I've got a bag of whole green peas (not split peas) in the pantry that I bought a year ago. About time to make a big pot of pea soup. Are whole peas really any different to cook than split peas except you have to soak them?
If they were beans instead of peas I'd need to pressure cook them cuz they are old. Not sure that matters so much with peas.
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Well, like my creamed cod and potatoes, my ham and bean soup is another something I just make. I don't follow a recipe, but I'll do my best...
A proper ham and bean soup is usually a two day preparation.
The day before, sort and pick a pound or so of white navy beans. Put in a pot and cover with at least 4 inches of water. Let soak at least overnight. I usually soak for about 12 hours.
Start your broth with a nice, meaty ham bone. Smoked salt cured only. Don't use sugar cured, or it will be gross.
You can also use a couple of ham hocks, or even smoked, cured neck bones if you can find them.
Cover the bone with water in a large stock pot. Add several halved onions, a handful of pepper corns, and, if you' want, a couple of carrots and ribs of celery.
Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover, and go do something else for 4 or 5 hours. Check every once in awhile to make sure it's not boiling dry.
When you have a nice stock and the meat is coming off the bone, pull it from the heat and strain it. If you've done it right you'll discard everything except the broth. The meat should have given up everything to the broth.
Put the broth in the fridge so that the fat layer will come to the top and can be removed.
Day 2
When the beans have soaked, rinse them well, return them to the pot, add water to cover along with a teaspoon of salt, and bring to a low boil. Cook until tender, about 1 to 2 hours. Test often, as you don't want them to get too mushy.
Once they're done, cover and set them back.
Next, chop a medium onion, a couple of carrots, and a couple of ribs of celery. The carrots and celery are option, I rarely use them.
Sweat in a pan over medium low heat with a tablespoon of butter until the carrots start to soften and the onions go translucent. Just before they're done, add a couple of cloves of minced garlic.
Bring the ham broth to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add the vegetables, a couple of bay leaves, a teaspoon or so of ground dry mustard, and some oregano and basil. Add low sodium chicken broth if you don't have enough ham broth.
Leave simmer 20 minutes or so, then drain and add the beans and a pound of diced ham.
Simmer another 20 minutes, fish out the bay leaves, and then mash some of the beans with a vegetable masher or a fork. That will add somebody to the soup.
At that point, you're done. Bowl up and eat.
I like eating my ham and bean soup with thick cut sourdough bread.
A nice touch to top the soup just before serving is to mix 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and a dab of mustard (which serves as an emulsifier). I do it by adding it all to a screw top bottle and shaking it.
Drizzle this over the top of the soup. The acid in the lemon adds a bit of brightness, and the oil adds a nice mouth feel along with its flavor.
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Someone mentioned bacon. Bacon and bean soup is also a tried and true recipe, although you need to use chicken or vegetable stock for it. The same with sausage and bean soup.
When I was a kid I didn't really like ham and bean soup. I don't know why or how I came around, but now I absolutely love the stuff.
A lot of people do serve it with corn bread, but I always liked a heartier bread, like Italian, the sourdough, or even a nice rye or black bread, in other words, a bread that I can use to sop up the last of the juice in the bowl.
This batch turned out REALLY freaking good. I have the last container of it sitting on my desk for this afternoon's lunch.
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I do my Navy bean soup with smoked ham hocks, normally 4 or 5 to a crock pot with 1 lb of beans and then I loosely follow the recipe for US Senate Navy Bean soup.
I always soak the beans overnight.
https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_item/bean_soup.htm
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/u-s--senate-bean-soup
bob
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We do ham and bean soup with brown beans onion and a nice smoked ham steak. No recipe but more ham and chicken stock to beans or it is just ham and beans.
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I've been looking all over town for smoked neckbones. Couldn't find any, so I paid too much for a smoked ham hock. Going to pressure cook it and a couple of bay leaves to make a stock, then use that and some carrots/celery/onions/soaked peas to make pea soup, and stir in fried kielbasa rounds when it's almost done.
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"Going to pressure cook it"
NO! I made that mistake once!
Trust me on this, if you pressure cook it you'll draw out a lot of flavor compounds that do NOT taste good or smell good! I threw out an entire batch of ham stock once because I pressure cooked the bones and they ended up smelling like a herd of wet pigs. It was gross.
I know there are a lot of recipes on the web for pressure cooking ham bones, but I won't do it. Comes out smelling WAY too piggy.
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My wife makes an awsome cuban black bean chili that starts with smoked ham hocks. I told her not to waste those in a batch of ham n bean soup.
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My wife makes an awsome cuban black bean chili that starts with smoked ham hocks. I told her not to waste those in a batch of ham n bean soup.
Heathen.