I have a delicious meaty ham bone left that is begging to be made into some sort of soupy wonder...

C

carianna-in-wa

Well-known member
I'm very interested in a simple slow-cooker white beans and ham. Seduced by a picture again.

(note - just noticed that this blog is the same blog I got the Crack Bread from. Woe.)

Anywho - I've looked at a few recipes and only one of 5 or 6 of them recommended soaking the beans overnight. What's your guys' opinion on that? I'm worried I'll cook them all day tomorrow and they'll never get completely soft. But I don't really want to soak them overnight either. I could soak them about 4 hours in the morning though.... I get up at 5 and am not planning on flipping the "on" switch on the slow cooker til 10)

http://www.plainchicken.com/2012/01/slow-cooker-ham-white-beans.html

 
I like to soak beans overnight but it's not essential. The cooking time is a little longer

and sometimes they don't get quite as tender if you don't soak them, but 4 hours would be a big help, and great northern beans are fairly soft anyway.

The most important factor is how old the beans are, not whether you soak them or not.

 
If I soak at all, which is not usually, I do quick soak, where you bring them to a boil, then

remove from the heat & let stand covered for an hour before proceeding.

 
Good luck. Could you please copy the recipe and paste? The link keep crashing my browser

and I can't get past "Great Northern..." I have a ham bone in the freezer and this may be the ticket.

 
Here it is... REC: Slow Cooker Ham and White Beans

My notes - I'm adding a diced onion instead of the onion powder, and a generous teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes. Also - interesting (to me) bit... I always dutifully sort through my dried beans as admonished by all recipes and have NEVER found anything whatsoever in there. I've been wondering if this is necessary at all anymore - but today I found an itty bitty rock in there. Who knew?

Slow Cooker Ham & White Beans

1 lb package dried northern beans
ham bone, hocks, shanks or diced ham (about 1 pound)
2 tsp onion powder
6 cups water
salt & pepper to taste

Rinse and sort the beans for any pebbles. Add the the rinsed beans, onion powder, salt, pepper, and ham to the crock pot. Add water. Cover and cook on low about 8 hours, until beans are tender. Remove ham bone, shanks or hocks and pull off the meat. Add meat to the crock pot and mix. Serve with cornbread.

 
I believe this will be our next cabin weekend meal. yum.

we defrosted the freezer down there and found a perfectly good and gigantic smoked pork hock

it's just begging to be used in these beans. I wonder if we can hack the hock in half with just a cleaver? that last sentence is quite lyrical, until the cleaver part!

 
Thanks. I would use a fresh onion too and perhaps some celery and herbs.

I've done ham hocks in the crock pot this way with lima beans or navy beans. When I was a starving artist living in a loft it was a mainstay.

 
I absolutely added fresh onion and red pepper flakes - thought about the other aromatics

that you and Melissa are talking about, but in the end I decided I wanted just one of those super simple peasant food experiences. I just pulled it out of the slow cooker and it's delicious. I love the way the red pepper adds heat on the back (but it's not spicy) and the beans are the star. Color me happy. smileys/smile.gif

 
Interesting link, but I've never seen scum like that on beans after soaking. The water is usually

perfectly clear. Sometimes I soak, sometimes I don't. I always soaked them until Russ Parsons wrote this article for the LA Times. I think you have to soak some beans, garbanzos is one example. Do you know if other countries that have high dried bean consumption soak them?

Edited to say I may have never soaked kidney beans, mostly just red beans, pinto beans, black beans,the different sizes of white beans, cranberry and limas..

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-calcook-20111027,0,2220089.story

 
I've never seen scum like that after just soaking, but when the beans come to a boil there is scum

that I skim off. I do think that more scum rises from beans that have been soaked before boiling than those that have not.

I'm not very sensitive to beans so I don't bother draining the soaking water.

I have used Melissa's quick method and also cooked without soaking, depending on how much time I have. It all works, but I think soaked beans plump up better and cook more evenly.

 
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