Black Eyed Peas

[mame11]

Last year when I made black eyed peas for New Years Day, I chopped up some turkey ham and threw it in the pot for, well, flavoring. This year, the year I officially became a meat eater, I'd like to use pork. I picked up some fatty bacon at Whole Foods to use to flavor the peas but I don't know if I am supposed to cook the bacon first or throw it in "raw" to boil with the peas.

Thanks and may everybody have a healthy and happy 2007.

[legant]

I use bacon as a base for most bean dishes. I cook the bacon. Remove the cooked bacon then saute the veggies (onions, celery or whatever) in the remaining fat. Add the cooked bacon to the finished dish (or the last few minutes of cooking). The bacon fat flavors the veggies and the cooked bacon adds a certain depth to the dish.

[treznor]

Ham hock or fatback is a tad more "traditional" but bacon does just fine for most boiled bean preperations. For baked beans bacon does much better. Regardless, the preperation above is the typical manner, basically you're just rendering out some fat to give some flavor.

[mame11]

Thank you Legant and TReznor for the advice on cooking with bacon. My Hoppin' John were a hit today. I thought I'd share what I did because it was pretty crazy (IMHO)....

I purchased maple sugar bacon from Whole Foods. It looked really fatty but I didn't realize (as I have never actually cooked pork bacon) how much grease the bacon would produce. I threw the chopped onion into the bacon grease to saute. Once the onion was transcluent as there was still grease in the pan, I threw the black eyed peas in for a bit. YUM!!!

Anywho, I hope everybody had a nice New Years!