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Boy, you clean up real nice.
Thank you very much.
Getting out of that field in Berea and all those beans. Everything with Bill Best.
You know that guy is an incredible source of information especially heirloom beans.
Yeah, he is.
We came back with a nice little stash of gold here. Greasy beans which we talk about
the chefs are loving these things.
Aren't these pretty?
They are pretty. So, what we need to do is get started on a recipe. We need to take some of
these beans and it takes a little bit of, little bit of time. We're going to use a ham hock.
Tell me about a ham hock.
A ham hock is the bottom shank of the pig. This one has been smoked. Traditionally,
what you want for a nice green bean you know smoked ham hock. Can you tell the nice
flavor of the ingredient?
Hahaha.
Anyway, a couple of these into a little pot of water. What we're going to do is make a
foundational broth which these beans are going to cook in and we're basically going to
show how to make the lazy housewives or the leather britches really, the dried beans
but we're also going to use. A lot of people throw away their broth. We're going to use that.
That's where the nutrients are. Do we string those Jeremy?
Yeah, we're going to do a little bit of work stringing these beans and show people how to
dry them out.
Uh-oh. I've got to work for my supper, huh? Okay.
It's pretty important steps. So, anyway ham hocks into a pot of water. We're going to add
some fresh onions which has been diced already. You know traditionally about all people
would put into their beans would be ham hock and onions and boil that down for a while.
Just a certain amount for taste? I mean you are like an expert.
Yeah, well, I would say a good half a cup of onion there, a little bit of salt, cracked pepper
would be good and here's some garlic. Grab that pepper mill for us.
I think I can manage that.
A little bit of chopped garlic goes in there. Traditionally, people don't put garlic in it but I
like that in mine and I'm going to make something called a potlikker out of this juice.
Potlikker. Southern term.
And that's a really nice ingredient. Yeah, exactly. Lots of good cracked pepper and don't
really hold back on this. You want to give it a lot of turns, lots of pepper.
Hey. I think pepper is underestimated, don't you? They say it makes gravy.
Man, it's a great ingredient.
Think about it.
There's no salt without pepper. You know the one thing is that I traditionally don't grill with
it or sear it because it becomes a little bit bitter but finish a dish with pepper or foundational
sauces it is incredible. You know you can't have salt without pepper. It's a Ying and Yang,
right?
Yeah.
Also, fresh thyme. You need a good handful of that going right into the pot. You can see
here it is a beautiful melange of ingredients.
I'm a olfactory whatever you want to say, nose.
Mmhmm.
I love smelling these things.
The idea behind a recipe like this is you want to take these beans and cook them for hours
and let the broth take on all of these ingredients.
This is what these become, right?
That's right. That's what they become. First thing you want to is let this go for a good hour
before we add the beans. That really develops the stock and all of these flavors will
stratify in the broth, The flavors will mix and it's just going to be a nice stock. We're also
going to use the stock before we add the green beans to cook our grits for this recipe.
Ahhhh. Ooh. I see, I see.
So, this goes onto the stove and we'll start a foundation here.
Alright, let's do it. Okay. I like foundations.
Okay so what we have are greasy beans and one thing that we learned from Bill and you
know the old traditional thing and beans are such a foundational thing in the south and
people nowadays have these images maybe when they were young of their
grandparents sitting on the porch and stringing beans...
I used to do that.
More and more that's kind of lost. You don;t really see that anymore. So when you get
something as precious as these greasy beans or heirloom beans, it's kinda nice to
repaint those images. You do want tot treat these in the sames way. You want to take
the end off.
Yeah?
And rung the string down this way and do the same thing on the other side.
And Bill talks about not cutting off too much of the bean that you actually use
that little tip, right?
Right.
I did bushels of these when I was a kid in southern Ohio with my parents from
Eastern Kentucky.
Here you go. See how that just kind of peeled off...
Beautiful
So you have to sit around and peel or string a whole mess of beans, right?
Mess. I love that.
At that point we can snap them, and then lay them out on a paper towel to dry.
Now another method would be to take your old sowing kit . Some people use
dental floss, some people use just a good sowing thread. But, needle and thread,
and you'll run it through.
And this creates what?
Well what we're going to do is run these through over and over again, a big mess of
them, and hang them up in your kitchen to dry.
Oh like this and then you do it like this? This is fun.
Yeah this is just another preservation method. You've got canning, you've got pickling,
you've got drying and this is a way to dry beans.
Some little country places might have a big bundle of these hanging up on the
ceiling in the rafters
And eventually these get hung up and dry out and they become these...
And they become these.
And they are called leather britches.
Uh-huh. Anf what happens is the sun or the dehydration really intensifies the flavors.So
these are going to go into the stock that we're making and cook for a very very long time
Okay, now it is grit time. We use a stone ground grit from the South. Instant will not do.
Must have the real thing.
The real thing. Our nice smoked ham hock broth is going with lots of fresh onions, thyme
and garlic.
Mmmmm.
It's developing. You can see it get cloudy and lovely. You know, classical French
cooking would say simmer but down South this is just something you just boil down.
Yeah.
So, some good grits, right?
Start with butter?
A good heap of butter right into the pan and let that kind of get melted up.
Use pure butter or....
Unsalted butter. We know there isn't any salt in there for preservative but also from a
flavor standpoint. In your salted butter you never know the ratio of salt.
Oh, okay. You can always add.
You can always add salt. I like to season at the end so get a wooden spoon and
get that butter going.
Wooden spoon? What's important about a wooden spoon?
There's something a little bit sexy about the way it moves. You know.
Sexy. Haha. I thought there was a scientific reason.
It's the way it works risotto, grits those kinds of porridges I like a spoon. See how
much character this one has? It's shredded down and little bit burned.
Oh, that's true actually it does seem better.
It's been loved. Some fresh garlic goes right into the butter. Now the thing about
adding aromatics like onion and garlic is you really want these to take off...
Yeah.
in the butter. You can already start to smell that.
It's kind of boiling kind of on higher heat.
It is on kind of a high heat. I'm going to turn it down a little bit.
Okay.
We don't really want it browning but we do want that to cook for a good minute or so.
See how it is just sizzling and perfuming the butter?
Got that
Oh, it smells so good.
nice yellow onion in there. I would say that was a good three fourths of a cup.
Is that a sweet onion?
It is. Well, it's a sweeter onion than say a white. It's a little Spanish yellow onion. Just a
common one you find at the grocery. Nothing really special there.
Yeah.
Now, a lot of people really rush through this step. I want to develop these flavors.
So, let this go. Keep stirring. Give it a good five minutes and let it get good and translucent.
They'll just kind of sit here and cook. Amazing. So, now that we have the onions where I
like them a little bit translucent. Moving. Dancing around having a little party here.
We go ahead and start adding our broth
From the stock.
from the stock, right?
A good ratio for the grits I would say four to one in terms of broth to grits. So, we need a good
amount of this.
Four to one?
As in broth to grits. We're going to add a good amount of broth here. Just keep adding it.
Yeah. Are you keeping count? Hahaha! That's why I can't cook.
Well, I kind of meant by volume ratios. I do want to keep this boiling here though so we
don't lose any momentum. So, I think this is going to be just fine. I'm going to go ahead
and reinforce it with a little bit more fresh thyme. I'm going to let that kind of roll in there.
I love the way thyme perfumes grits and pastas and grains. We do have to pick this out
later but anyway, you can already start to
Any other herb you can use besides thyme?
You know depending on fall or spring just depends on what feel you want. Sage
would be amazing. good ole' Southern food. A little bit more butter in there.
Okay.
Then, we're going to stir in some grits.
Okay, so that's the ratio piece, right?
Yeah, and I'm actually not going to use all of this. We'll get a little more accurate descriptions
on the screen and website here but a little bit of grits here to take on that stock.
And so this starts boils until the grits absorb the liquid
Right. And you want to stir pretty occasionally, every two to three minutes. Give it a stir.
I'm going to turn this down quite a bit. I do want to see some bubbles but not a whole
lot of this violent action here.
Jeremy, what happens now?
Everything came together amazing, creamy grits greasy beans that were dry and now they're
cooked. And the ham hock is in there. We've got a nice potlikker broth which is just
killen' me with the perfume it's awesome. This is just a great little country style dish.
See how these grits just fall into the bowl.
Oh! They are CREAMY!!!
Lots of good, fresh thyme. I'm going to pick out that twig because we don't want to serve
that but you know, it's kind of nice to have it in there because it flavored the dish so well.
So, we'll take this out.
Are you better off doing it in a bowl like this?
Oh, yeah. A plate is just gonna not contain all the good, goodness of those grits coming
down like that, so. Take a little bit of these greasy beans see that ham hock in there?
Yeah! Oh, it's lucky it has made it this far without me eating it.
Put it delicately down. Stack those up. And this is just as good and Southern as it gets
but the thing is the ingredients are so pristine. Ummm, we've got that poached egg
that we did.
Yeah.
And kind of bring that out. Kind of put that down to where we can delicately lay that on top
because we are going to poke in there and it's going to sauce the whole dish. Right?
Yeah.
So, once we have that in place I'm going to act like it is kind of a garden dish.
Yeah. Big 'ole mater.
A Southern tomato, right?
Look how red that thing is.
And I've got to have a little salt on that. Don't forget to put a little salt on your tomato, right?
Absolutely.
So, a little bit of this down in here. And then maybe a little pickled you know if you get
some pickled vegetables at the house garnish with them. Okra, onion or green bean
green bean two ways here. I've just got a little red onion. We pickled that too.
How do you pickle? What's in it?
A little red wine vinegar and sugar. Little things I keep around just to kinda put garnishes
on things. Then a little homemade hot sauce for me.
Me too!
Another episode we've got to do is chilies and hot sauce
Is this homemade?
Yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely.
You can find some really good sauces you know. Kentucky kind of stuff. So, we're doing
a lot of value added products in fact.
That's a wonderful little dish there.
Thats so pretty!
And man is that going to be comforting. You just dig in there.
I want to dig in. Where's a?
I've got a spoon with hot sauce on it.
Yummers!
Go for it!
Okay! Let's do it . Have to get all the ingredients on here.
Yep!
Okay, now.
There you go.
A bean, little bit of a tomato.
Here you go.
Oh! We were going to poke the egg!
I'll take care of that part.
Yeah, that's right.
See how that is kind of saucing right into the bowl?
Mmm.
What you're looking for is a little egg, tomato and bean.
That is so good. Yummers!
Mmmm.
Good.
That's like a perfect Southern brunch.
I want to taste these grits too. Just a little bit on there.
There's just something about that there's history in that bowl.
There is history in that bowl and Bill Best thank people like him for bringing that tradition
back. Bringing tastes together.
Also, just a variation of what's been done in the past pickles and vinegars and hot sauce
it kind of all comes together.
Making it all come together.
I'm going back for more. Why not?
Yeah. We'll be back.