Pork and Beans | The Foodie Pilgrim

By John, 10 March, 2014

Description

Pork and Beans This is a "Yankee Cassoulet", a hearty, savory dish of beans and pork that can be used as a side dish or as a one-pot meal.

Salt Pork was hugely important in colonial times. Many people could keep a pig, and when the surplus shoats were slaughtered, you would only get a few fresh roasts; all the rest of the meat would be salted and put into a brine barrel as salt pork.

With beans as a common storeable vegetable and pork as a common storeable meat, it's no surprise that every tavern and ship in the colonies tried to develop a good recipe to use those essential ingredients.

This recipe is savory and wonderful, with beans baked in ham stock with a few traditional New England seasonings.

Yield

10 Servings

Preparation time

6 hours

Ingredients

1 lb Beans (Soaked overnight; I used Navy Beans)

1 t dry mustard

1⁄4 t Allspice (ground)

1⁄4 t Cloves (ground)

1⁄4 t Ginger (ground)

1⁄2 c Molasses (not blackstrap)

2 c Ham Stock

1⁄2 Onion (minced)

12 oz Salt Pork

1 t Salt

Instructions

Soak the beans overnight in fresh water.
Change the water and cook the beans until the skins burst when you blow on them.
Stir the spices into the molasses until smooth, then add a cup of boiling water.
Slice the rind from the salt pork and set it aside. Cut the remaining salt pork into 9 pieces or so, to get a mix of fat and lean pieces.
Set a few pieces of fatty pork on the bottom of a beanpot.
Preheat the oven to 300.
Saute the onion in a little butter until translucent. Add the cooked beans.
Add one-third of the beans and onion mixture to the beanpot, then add some salt pork, then more pork and beans, until you have used all the pork and beans.
Pour the hot water-molasses-spice mixture to the pot, plus water as needed to overtop the beans.
Score the rind of the salt pork and nestle it into the beans. Add some fresh pepper if you like.
Bake covered at 300 degrees for 4-5 hours.
Serve hot, maybe with fishcakes or fried eggs, or hot dogs.