Hoppin' John

Delicious. Creamy and flavorful.

This was a big hit with our friends. I only used the bacon and I used 4 whole peeled canned tomatoes crushed by hand. Another recipe on NYT called for chopped garlic, so I added that, too. Finally, the local food store had rehydrated black eyed peas, so I used those and cut down the cooking time since that package indicated to cook for just 20 minutes. Basically, I was able to add the peas and the rice at the same time.

Overall, a solid recipe. I’m especially glad it calls for cooking the dish accretively, by adding ingredients to a constantly boiling pot, which ensure peak flavor penetration. As I have access to fresh pinkeye peas, I use those instead of blackeyed, and I double or triple the amount so the peas don’t get lost. Much more should be said, though, on the use of hot jowl, because the difference between cured and I cured is significant, and if you work with uncured, it vastly increases cook time.

The 1 1/2 cups rice in this recipe dulls the flavors and the peas get lost. Next time I will cut it back to 1 cup of rice.

Made this for New Year’s Day. Used bacon (only tweak) and the rice does need more like an hour. Delicious as is!

Really liked it. Added carrots and celery. Made it with bacon. Going to try adding some sausage next time.

I made this for New Year's Day and followed the suggestions from others and added thyme, bay leaf and cooked the mixture in a beef broth. I found that the rice needed significantly more time (over an hour) to reach the desired tenderness. It's a good recipe, needs a few tweaks. Maybe some acid...

Made this for New Years tomorrow and per the reviews I read here before making it did some additions. If you are looking for a guaranteed boost to this recipe, keep reading. I added 2 cloves of chopped garlic and 1 stalk of chopped celery to the sautéed onion. Then deglazed the pan for that delicious frond with a couple of splashes of white wine. For the stock, added 1.5 teaspoons of veggie base better than bullion (decrease the salt to 1/2 tsp), 2 bay leaves and 3 sprigs of fresh thyme.

My mom always made this with green beans in place of the tomato. Perhaps that’s a West Virginia version. Very tasty, will try with tomatoes. And most important: CORNBREAD

Very easy to cook, Unfortunately, very dull in flavors. Maybe a Garlic clove or two would make the difference... or some spices, or maybe a beef stock instead of water, could do the trick and save this hearty dish. However, for me, It started with great hopes and ended with a flop. Won't cook it again. Regarding components ratio, It's perfect. If you'd rather more beans than rice, revers the two, otherwise this is a "Ricey" dish rather than a "Beany" one.

Delicious! I added a bell pepper with the onion. I would have added collard greens if they were available. The rice absorbed most of the the broth 30 minutes after it was cooked, so you might want to cook the rice separately.

This is a reliable New Year's Day, good luck and prosperity beans, pork and rice dish. I add red pepper flakes and a few dashes of Tobasco to add a bit of heat and to pump up the flavor.

We prefer more beans, so I invert the proportions of beans to rice.

Don't forget to add a quarter to the dish. Whoever finds it is granted extra special good luck for the coming New Year!