Recipe for Hoppin John and Collard Greens – A New Year’s Day Tradition
It’s a New Year’s Day tradition in the South to eat Hoppin John and Collard Greens. Hoppin John is said to bring good luck and wealth in the form of coins. Some people have been known to even hide a dime in the peas and the person that finds the dime is supposed to have wealth in the future. Collard Greens are said to bring wealth in the form of bills. Pork is another important food as part of this tradition. Pork is said to represent the future since Hogs can’t look back. So if you haven’t celebrated this tradition and want to try it here’s a recipe for Hoppin John and Collard Greens.
Hoppin Johns by Ruthie
Bag of field peas
Long grain rice
Smoked neck bones
Smoked ham chunks
Salt, pepper
Boil field peas, neckbones and ham chunks for about 2 hours. Remove pot from heat, take neckbones out of the pot, discard bones from the meat of the neckbones. Place all (including gravy from beans) back in a rice cooker, add rice, season to taste with salt and pepper. Boil until all the water or gravy from beans is gone out of the pot, reduce heat to low, stir pot to avoid sticky rice. Simmer for approximately 20 minutes or until rice is cooked.
For added favor (and unfortunately added calories) add two Tbs of butter.
Hint: For every cup of rice add two cups of water. Be careful included in the water is also the gravy from the beans. Add a bit more water if you like your rice soft.
Rhenda’s Collard Greens
2 Bunches of Collards
Salt to taste
Neck bone or Ham Hock
Sugar to taste
Pull leaves off of stems. Place in Dutch oven pot and cover with water add either Ham Hock or Neck bone, salt and sugar. Boil until color turns to a dark green and is tender.
Serve with Hoppin John.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
[...] Don’t forget about the hopping John for luck and the collards for money on New Year’s Day! If this is a new tradition for you here’s a recipe for both Hoppin John and Collards. Hoppin John and Collard Greens [...]