Recipes come from a wide range of sources and one of my favorites is the grocery store, especially the meat market. Veggie recipes are certainly welcome when I’m shopping in a foreign-specialty shop because I don’t necessarily recognize the specific foods, but butchers offer a wealth of information about their life’s work.
Today, I went looking for a ham hock in Kroger, on a day when a big hurricane is threatening. That meant reduced stock and the meat dude said they were out of ham hocks. I didn’t want to buy a whole ham just to get the hock, but he had a suggestion: “I have several customers who use smoked turkey instead of hocks or jowls,” he said. “They’re all smoked and basically taste the same, but the turkey is a lot healthier.”
OK, so I bought it (literally and figuratively: two smoked turkey drumsticks for flavoring my pea soup).
The rest was easy.
- 2 cups of split peas
- 8 cups of water
- 1 smoked turkey drumstick
- 5 stalks spring onions
- 3 stalks celery (or about a half teaspoon of celery seed)
- 1 cup brown rice, precooked
Boil the peas, turkey and water for about half an hour. Take the drumstick out and separate the lean meat. Add the meat to the peas. Then add the onions, celery (or seed) and rice. Let it all simmer until it thickens. Now you can wait for the rain.
(Additional benefit: Your house will smell like a high-end restaurant while this stuff is cooking.)
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
