bringing the people behind our food to
life today we're going to be making
blackeyed peas and cornbread this is a
traditional dish especially in the South
where it's believed that the blackeyed
peas bring prosperity in the New Year
it's often served with other dishes like
greens which would represent luck in
finding more money in the coming year
this dish is also very good with
cornbread or with rice when it's mixed
with rice it becomes hop and John
several different dishes from one to
make this dish you want to start out by
making a ham stock you can actually use
ham shank like what I have here you can
use ham Hawk any type of smoked pork
would work you can even use smoked
turkey take your
ham chunk it up a little
bit get the pieces at least a little
smaller you can go back later and chop
it up finer than
this once you have them you're going to
be placing them in a
pot along with some sliced up
onion and for your onion you don't need
to cut this very small this is by the
time it's done going to be cooking for
several hours so this onion is going to
really dissolve down into
nothing even for people who don't like
onions you're not going to get a big
chunk of onion in your mouth and not
like it
also
garlic with the garlic again you don't
need this to be chopped up fine just
take your
knife going to smack it peel comes right
off probably about a/4 cup or so throw
it in that's all you need for seasoning
what I usually do I have a seasoning mix
I make up myself if you don't want to
make it up yourself you can use pretty
much any seasoning blend out on the
market uh AC creal spice is a good one I
usually start out with three tablespoons
approximately after it's been cooking
for a while I'll add in more if it's
needed I wouldn't add in a full four yet
because you could end up with salty
beans now beans do love salt but it's
easy to go overboard and uh bay leaf Bay
is really good in any uh Bean or pea
dish just take some tear it up throw it
in the pot another little trick that I
often do with the beans is add a small
amount of baking soda about a half
teaspoon and this helps the beans to
soften up quite a
bit from
here throw in some thyme and with thyme
again this is a fresh herb don't be
afraid of it if you buy it from the
store it's going to be wound uptight
with this uh packaging here use that to
your advantage when you're buying time
buy the nice fresh ones not the Woody
ones if you can help it because you can
just cut straight
down and you don't have to worry about
little wooden pieces you don't have to
worry about pulling the leaves off the
time that's really Overkill you might
see that in some French restaurant
somewhere but for everyday people that's
really not feable you're looking for
about a half a
bunch run your knife over it if you need
to throw it in the
pot get that over onto your
burner takes about six cups of water for
this
batch turn it up to high and we're just
going to let that go oh and don't forget
the
pepper probably need about a
teaspoon we'll let that go on high for a
while let it come to a good boil then
we're going to turn it down and let it
kind of simmer a kind of a high simmer
now while this is working this would be
a good time to go ahead and get your
oven preheated for the cornbread for
your cornbread you're going to need a
heavy C inculet or other heavy baking
dish a heavy dish will give a better
crust on your cornbread you'll want to
put your favorite shortening or in my
case lard which I make my own lard
here it's a lot better quality than what
you can get in the
store the lard in the store is often
hydrogenated and I don't know why you
need to do that so shortening in the pan
pan in the oven while it's preheating
don't worry about spreading the
shortening around in the pan it's going
to melt and coat the inside and you can
just SSH it around in the pan when you
take it out to put your cornbread in now
for your
cornbread um I'm going to make a very
basic Southern sty cornbread uh southern
style cornbread the more traditional
ones don't always have flour in them
like this one and with these corn breads
um the reason why works so well is corn
meals in the South the old style they're
very finely ground with a stone meal and
you get texture that's very fine almost
almost like corn flour just a little
more grit to it and this is the type of
cornmeal you need for a light cornbread
without having to have a lot of flour in
it so take your
cornmeal place it in your bowl that is
about 1 and 3/4
cup add the rest of your dry ingredients
uh baking
soda
salt baking
powder and optional some people like
little sugar some people don't a
traditional southern style cornbread
would have little to no sugar it is not
going to be sweet like a northern style
sweet almost cake cornbread uh combine
your dry ingredients
another thing you'll notice is that this
cornmeal is white a lot of the more
traditional corn meals are white out of
the South you can get yellow or white
and some people will tell you it makes
the big difference some people have
preference one to the other I usually
like the white but it's not that big of
a
difference once the dry is
combined add your egg
and your
buttermilk that's about a cup and a half
of
Buttermilk you want to mix until
everything is mixed together uh it will
have a smooth yet somewhat lumpy
consistency it shouldn't be super smooth
but it shouldn't have huge lumps in it
either
break up the egg mix it all
together this is also the same batter
that you would use if you wanted to make
corn sticks or corn muffins you could
even use this in a skillet and make
little flat corn cakes it's very
versatile once you have that mixed up
you want to take your preheated Skillet
out of the
oven it should be quite hot by now
a little bit of smoke coming off is
perfectly
normal swish around your grease when to
get it all up on the sides careful not
to burn
yourself and when you put this
in you should hear a
Sizzle if it's quiet then your pan is
not hot
enough that's the
sound this is going to give a really
nice crust for this
cornbread another thing to uh note about
this type of cornbread is when you make
it this way with having so little if any
sweetener or sugar and the fact that it
has no flour doesn't have a lot of
enrichments it's being baked in a very
hot oven so it does not take very long
to get
done so set your timer start with 15
minutes it usually takes 20
but it's better to start on the lower
side rather than to burn it after about
45 minutes the meat in the stock that
you put in earlier should be getting
tender enough that you can take it out
and chop it up so pull it from the
pot and your broth should be looking
nice and Rich by this
point bring it to your cutting
board
just take a
knife cut it up into whatever size
pieces you want really um I like to
leave them kind of big about like this
that way you can tell you've got chunks
of meat in
there and you can just do a rough cut
this doesn't have to be
perfect it's still going to get even
more tender and start to fall apart as
you're cooking the beans down
more put the meat into the
pot and now you want to grab your
reserved vegetables you want to
use about a Cup's worth of uh carrot and
celery when you cut these you don't need
to cut them up small they can be cut up
in large chunks because this is going to
cook once you put the blackeyed peas in
it's going to cook for another hour and
a
half with this dish it's not a dish that
you would traditionally cook the peas to
a point where they're going to be very
crispy you're going to want them to cook
down and be very soft very tender and
they will make their own sauce in the
pot so if you were to cut this up too
small they would just disappear and you
would not even know that they were in
there so nice large chunks is
fine you'll want to take your vegetables
over to your pot
now
you want to put your vegetables
in you'll notice also at this point how
rich the broth is becoming this is what
you want to see this is what's going to
flavor those blackeyed peas and now you
can put the blackeyed peas in they've
been soaking for about an hour and a
half 2 hours at this point uh with the
peas you don't have to soak them it just
makes the cooking a little faster but
even soaking them a couple hours will
take as much as 20 30 minutes off of
your cooking time blackeyed peas can go
in it's been about 15 minutes now
timer's going off let's check the
cornbread
and you'll notice the color nice and
brown golden brown on top the top is not
wet it doesn't have a Sheen like you
would often see with a sweeter type of
cornbread and you'll notice that it's
loose in the pan it'll come right out it
should not stick and the bottom be nice
and crispy as well now this is good to
go I would normally give this at least a
couple minutes just so you can cut it
but anytime after that it's good to eat
now after allowing the beans to cook for
about an hour they should be getting
nice and plump still a little too hard
to really eat and enjoy but they'll
start to plump up and get a little
softer this is a really good time to
taste the broth taste the bean taste the
veggie and see if you need more
seasoning now this is probably going to
need a little bit more salt the spice is
pretty good I'm not going to add any
more spice
but you definitely want to do this now
instead of waiting to the very end if
you wait till the very end the beans
will taste more bland and the sauce
itself will be very seasoned but with
Bland beans and you don't want that so I
would add probably it's a little
more about a teaspoon to tablespoon
range depending on what you
need this is also the right time to add
in the tomato
you add these towards the end because
they're going to add a little more uh
freshness I know it's a long cooked dish
but with this type of dish the acidity
of the dish tends to get a little flat
so adding something like tomatoes at the
end kind of brightens it up and makes it
taste a little fresher so you'll want to
give this probably about another half
hour 45 minutes but keep checking it and
what you should see is that the beans
are going to plump up more the sauce is
going to thicken and look almost like
gravy and um it'll have a nice beautiful
Sheen to
it now after about another half hour
your soup should be pretty hot been
cooking for a while check and see the
thickness you should have a nice thick
gravy
formed once you get that and you've
already adjusted your seasoning you are
ready for
service dish
up and you you should notice a nice
thick sauce this should not be runny
thin should be nice and
thick for your cornbread just cut it
right down through the center some
people do squares some people do uh
triangles or wedges whatever you
prefer it should lift right out and
you'll notice with that type of uh fine
cornmeal it's going to be very finely
grained it's still hard to tell but is
actually very moist it's not dry at all
and it'll have a nice texture for
soaking up all the juice in the blackard
bees it's a great way to start off a new
year so this is our fil your pantry
Market the main difference between this
event and a farmer's market is the bulk
desire you know the customers come
knowing that they're going to be buying
a lot with the idea of people storing up
for the
winter and