Hoppin John Recipe

Makin' Hoppin' John - My Recipe

Dried Black-eyed peas on my cutting board, eager to become a delicious treat

There are probably as many methods of preparing Hoppin' John as there are people who prepare it.  For the uninitiated, Hoppin' John is a dish that many southerners believe (at least hope, or pretend to believe) will bring good luck for the subsequent year if consumed on New Year's day. And why not?  It is tasty and nutritious, fun, easy and inexpensive to prepare.  There are various tales as to how the dish got it's name.  You can Duck Duck Go it if you care; I don't.

Most of my Berkshire neighbors who were, unluckily, born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, seem unfamiliar with this tradition.  In responding to my last minute search for Black-eyed peas via a posting on "The Hill", our neighborhood Google newsgroup, (see my previous post)  one of my neighbors asked how we prepared Hoppin' John.

One cannot merely post a recipe, there needs to be context and commentary.

Unlike Turkey at Thanksgiving and Corned beef on St Patty's day, consuming Hoppin' John on days other than the designated holiday is not only perfectly OK, but encouraged.

The two essential ingredients are black-eyed peas (which I have seen inexplicably marketed as "Cow Peas") and rice.  I suppose the peas could be fresh, frozen or canned and still qualify, but more than 99% of the time, dehydrated does the trick. Although usually white, any rice will do.

Step one, acquire black-eyed peas

A pound of dried beans will be sufficient to yield 8 to 10 cups of cooked beans.   I have seen a few recipes on the internet purporting to be "hoppin John" that don't even mention rice.  Without rice, whatever you prepare is NOT "Hoppin' John". Those are simply Black-eyed pea recipes.  Rice is required, otherwise disaster upon disaster will haunt you for the year's remainder.

Prepare the peas.

This is simple.  Treat them like you would any dried bean. Put them into a pot, cover with plenty of water - 8 to 10 cups for a pound of peas, and let them soak overnight.  If you are in a hurry, say you wake up with a hangover at noon on New Years day and have forgotton to soak them, you can bring the pot to a boil for 2 minutes, turn the fire off and soak the legumes for an additional hour or more.  I prefer the non-hangover method.

Drain the water and rinse the soaked peas in fresh aqua.  This will help mitigate any intestinal after effects.

Saute a sliced chopped large onion, maybe two (you cannot have too much) in a large pot until the onion is translucent.  Sometimes I saute a crushed garlic clove or two.  I prefer Cast iron, but a less authentic vessel would probably do. Herein is the part where choices need to be made.  Bacon fat is the preferred oil, followed by lard but if you will be serving Muslim, Hasidic or vegetarian guests, either keep this part secret or use some kind of vegetable oil. 

Put the peas, a teaspoon of salt, and 8 to 10 cups of water into the pot.  Now time for more choices. When cooking most dried legumes (I haven't tried it with peanuts) I prefer to place a ham bone, or something similar in the pot.  When that isn't available, a chunk of ham with fat attached is the second best choice.  If you will be serving any of the aforementioned guests, you can skip this. The peas will still be delicious, but a bit different.  Bring the peas to a boil. affix a lid, reduce the heat and let simmer for a while.

I confess, I have never timed this stage.  Cooking time will vary depending on what you have or have not added, the heat your stove produces  and how soft you want your cooked  peas to be.  It will likely take at least a couple of hours. I just keep checking the peas until they are at my preferred texture.

Black-eyed peas at the Berkshire Coop Market

How To Screw Up Hoppin' John

The good news is that the only way to  screw this up is to put in too little water and scorch the peas, a cooking sin I have, on occasion, committed.  I generally add water as the beans cook for two reasons;  to replace water loss due to evaporation and my preference for an abundance of liquid in the finished product.  The liquid, not the peas, is where all the flavor resides.  I cook the peas until they are very soft and the liquid begins to resemble a light thin gravy.

While the peas are cooking, prepare a pot of rice.  Any rice will do.  We usually use brown rice or sometimes your basic white rice cooked in water or vegetable stock.

Choice time again.

When both the rice and peas are cooked, some folks combine them and serve the result as a single dish. My tradition and my preference is to serve them separately, with the peas ladled over the rice, the liquid soaking in, so that each diner determines their own pea to grain ratio.  The advantage of the second method is more flexibility with the leftovers.  There ought to be leftovers.  If there are no leftovers, y'all didn't do it right.

A bowl of cooked Black-eyed peas

Serving

We serve Hoppin' John with sides of fresh diced tomatoes and chopped onions that each diner may apply as they wish.  The complete New Year's day meal usually includes greens (thoroughly cooked collards preferred), Southern Cornbread (see my previous posts and recipe for Southern style cornbread), cole slaw (which is nothing like the local grocery store deli goop of the same name), and usually ham. A bottle of Louisiana peppers in vinegar on the table for sprinkling on the collards is a welcome and authentic southern condiment.