AAF’s Recipe of the Day
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on May 7, 2008 – 12:18 pm -When I lived in Australia, one of the chefs who worked with us at our eatery was a Cuban, named, would you believe it, Castro Del Maria. We liked his food so much we made him in charge of cooking all the staff meals.
One of the recurring dish (at our request) was ham hocks with spicy black beans.
As you know, a staple common to Cuban cooking is black beans. Yoo’ll find that although they may seem common, they can be used in a variety of different dishes. I know this from the genial Castro! You could say he taught me a lot about beans.
This is for 6 to 8 persons.
1 pound dried black beans, 4 pints of water, 8 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed, 3 medium onion, peeled and chopped, 1/2pound salted pork, chopped in little bits, 3 pounds smoked ham hocks, cut in 1 inch pieces, 2 tbsp smoked paprika, 3 tbsp ground cumin, 4 bay leaves, 2 tbsp chili flakes, 2 pints chicken stock, half a glass of red wine vinegar, salt & pepper to taste, and a bunch of cilantro for the end.
Place black beans and water in large stock pot. Cover and boil two minutes. Turn off heat and let stand covered for 1 hour (that is a secret, apparently Castro used to say that it helped the beans…)
Remove the lid and add the rest of the ingredients, except the vinegar, salt and pepper. There should be enough water to just cover the beans, so if necessary add a bit or water. Cover and simmer until the beans are tender, about 2 hours. Take out the hocks and remove the bones (if you want to, we never used to). Return the meat to the pot. Add the vinegar, salt & pepper. Simmer long enough to heat the vinegar, serve with rice and decorate with cilantro.
Tags: Black Beans, Cuban Food, Recipe
Posted in Food, Recipes |
10 Comments
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What a coincidence! I just received an order from an online purveyor of bulk beans, seeds, and nuts, and part of it was a five-pound bag of black beans.
Now to find ham hocks and salt pork. I think I know just the meat market…
I’m cooking this tomorrow, for my staff. We found quite a few ham hocks and that will be just fine.
I have a source for hamhocks, but they seem very large. I’ll have to ask to have them cut into one inch pieces. Can’t wait to try this recipe.
You won’t be disappointed!
Yay! I’m logged in. Recipe looks terrific and I am a huge black bean fan. I’m buying a recipe book that uses agave syrup — there’s a black bean recipe in it that is supposed to be a killer.
Cheers, AAF.
Great to see you here!
[…] The Progressive Economics Forum » What’s New at the PEF wrote an interesting post today on AAFâ??s Recipe of the DayHere’s a quick excerptWhen I lived in Australia, one of the chefs who worked with us at our eatery was a Cuban, named, would you believe it, Castro Del Maria. […]
Yummy. Thanks for this recipe. I love hamhocks, but I never know whether I should parboil them first in order to skim off the foaming detritus that floats to the top, or just toss them in with the beans. I’m assuming that by boiling and then letting the beans set for a while is in lieu of soaking them for 24 hours or overnight. Right? Do you then pour off the soaking water (which my mother did because she said it reduced the gasiness effect of the beans, although you could never tell. It didn’t seem to help that much. I’m going to try this one. Sounds delicious. Served with rice?
I’ll be back later. There’s a lot of stuff here I’ll need to peruse at a more leisurely pace. I’m still logged in, which is good. I’m not sure I remember my password. By the way, what is my UID on this blog?
You are a sprightly 8!