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Hopping John

dish of white rice with beans and ham on top

Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients

  • ½ cup dry blackeye or pinto beans
  • 2 ¼ or 3 cups ham broth
  • ½ cup chopped cooked ham
  • ½ cup rice
  • salt and pepper

Directions

  1. Add beans to ham broth, using 2 ¼ cups broth for the blackeye beans, 3 cups for pinto beans. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and soak for 1 hour. Do not soak overnight in broth.
  2. Boil beans gently in the broth until they are almost done, approximately ½ hour for blackeye beans and 2 hours for pinto beans.
  3. Add ham and rice and cook covered until rice is done – about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on kind of rice. The liquid should be almost cooked away by the time the rice is tender. If there is too much liquid as the mixture cooks, take off the cover the last 10 minutes and turn up the heat. If the mixture seems too dry, add more ham broth.

Notes

  • Use canned beans instead of dry (skip step one).
  • Ham broth can be made using ham hock, or you can use chicken or vegetable broth instead of ham broth.

Recipe from: Dry Beans, Peas, Lentils … Modern Cookery, 1952, adapted by the USDA Food and Nutrition Administration.