How do you cook green veggies with ham/bacon?!
so...a fast & easy explanation as how it's done.....been cookin'/baking for fourty years so I do know my way 'round a kitchen.....any help???? Thanx, from me & the Hubby....
Answers: Okay, once again here's a NY cook with a question for all you great Southern cooks....hey mrschl are you out there? I never knew/saw/had/heard of greens such as turnip, collard,etc. and green (string) beans cooked with either bacon or ham until moving down to Dixie to be with my Georgia peach of a hubby.....and I promised him to fix his green beans that way some day ( he won't touch turnip or collards...what's with that?)
so...a fast & easy explanation as how it's done.....been cookin'/baking for fourty years so I do know my way 'round a kitchen.....any help???? Thanx, from me & the Hubby....
Its best to buy either fresh or frozen for best taste. Dont have time to pick fresh the frozen is the way to go. I usually use salt pork or a ham hocks (id use about 2 smoked hocks for 1 lb of green beans). Put enough water in the pot and boil the pork alone, for ham hocks its best to boil until the meat begins to fall off the bone (about an hour). The water will boil of so check on it and add as neccessary. Add the gb's and cook (simmer) til tender/to taste. If you are adding more seasoning, wait until the end, cause cooking in that pork is salty enough. Good Luck!
I make green beans and bacon all the time.
Brown up some bacon peices and then pour in a can of green beans - thats it.
i'm from tx where we eat soul food, plus i went to culinary school, so here goes. you need something called fat back or salt jole. its basically bacon but with a little more fat and flavor. use fresh green beans and just boil them til tender, with the fat back in. u can use bacon if you cant find the fat back. i like to put finely diced onion in my green beans, season with tony cacheres season salt. do the same with your greens and neck bones(pork), then frie some corn bread. use 1 cup corn meal with boiling hot water, mix should be thick and spoonable, table spoon the mix in very hot grease (iron skillet works best) let it fry til golden brown, should be crunchy on the outside and a little soft on the inside. eat this with the green beans or greens. boil some black eyed peas for luck. thats what we do down here. also get the patti labelle cookbook.
If he's a real southern boy, what he wants is old-fashioned nearly-flat string beans like Kentucky Wonders, not the little bright "green beans." Talk to some older locals about where to get proper string beans, it's not quite too late in the season unless you're in North Georgia. And ask his female relatives how they do it - that's the taste he's thinking of.
The trick is long slow cooking. You can use smoked ham or bacon or fatback, don't use canned ham or honey ham. Of course fresh or frozen beans, not the salty limp canned kind.
Depends on how you like it! Start with raw beans & raw bacon, in this case you'll need to cook at least an hour which is too long for "green beans." For them start with frying the fatback or bacon, drain most of the fat off, add beans and water, or start with chunked up ham and raw beans.
Don't salt until the beans are at least half cooked. Use enough water to cover only, add more as it boils away. Sprinkle some red pepper in there if you like.
It's not thanksgiving without collard greens!
You can use bacon or ham slices. For Thanksgiving, we always make a ham and just use the little extra fatty pieces to flavor the collards.
When you cook collards (I know you're specifically asking about green beans, but trust me - collards are God's gift to vegetables), put them in a large pan with a bit of water, salt, pepper, and ham and bacon fat. Let them simmer for HOURS. My aunt will cook them over night, no kidding. Then serve them with vinegar. Mmmmmm.
The bacon or ham can be cooked or uncooked. If you let the veggies simmer as long as a good ol' southerner would, then it will be cooked by the time the whole process is done.
You should get them fresh or as fresh as you can get them and then add many pieces of bacon into a boiling pot of water with the green beans but around the end so they can cook but so they have some what flavor left in them and season it with seasoning salt and pepper, you can do the same thing with ham hock but don't get any flavored ones unless they are smoked like hickory smoked.