Single Guy’s Kitchen

Hoppin John is a Southern dish with roots in the low country of South Carolina. It consists of rice and black-eyed peas (or field peas) seasoned with fat back, ham hock, bacon, or some smoked pork variant. Most seem to think it has origins as slave cuisine but nowadays it is considered a traditional New Year’s Day dish. Southern tradition insists that one eats pork, greens, and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day to bring luck and wealth in the near year. The version I fixed would almost be a one dish New Year’s meal since it includes collards.

I found this particular recipe on Recipezaar (one of my favorite recipe sites) and I’ve been trying to use my slow cooker more since receiving it for Christmas, so here it is “Hoppin John” in the Slow Cooker.

Ingredients:

3 cans Black-Eyed Peas (drained)

16oz Fresh Collard Greens (frozen should be fine too)

1 Small Sweet Onion

Handful of Baby Carrots

3 Ribs of Celery

2 Cups Chicken Broth

1 Ham Hock

2 Teaspoons of Thyme

2 Teaspoons Red Pepper (I just eyeball this)

It really doesn’t get any easier than this which is one of the reasons I love my slow cooker. I work ten hour days and have a long commute to and from work so it really makes fixing supper easy. Dice up your onion, carrots, and celery and lay those in the bottom of the slow cooker with the ham hock. Layer your peas and collards on top of this. Finally mix your broth with your spices and pour it over everything. Set your slow cooker to low and come back in about 10 hours. Mine actually sat on low for 12 hours and on warm for another 1 hour. I did pull the ham hock out, picked off any usable meat, and added the meat back in. You can just remove the ham hock altogether though if you like.

I put everything together the night before and threw it in the fridge to save time the next morning before work. Here it is the night before:

The next morning I just pulled it out of the refrigerator, turned on the crock pot and came home 12 hours later to this:

I recommend serving it with rice (I like brown rice) and corn bread. Just scoop some rice into the bottom of a bowl and serve the Hoppin John right over top.

Delicious!

Let me know if you give this a try and how it works for you. I’d love to get some feedback. I may cut back on the stock and add a little more spice next time but we’ll see. This makes a lot too. It filled my 6-qt slow cooker so be ready for that.