Frank's Famous Butterbeans and Hambones with Cornbread Pancakes

Frank's Famous Butterbeans and Hambones with Cornbread Pancakes
Butterbeans, ham, sautéed onions and celery, diced tomatoes, and a rich-flavored stock! Smother it all down with a touch of crushed red pepper, bay leaves, basil, thyme, and parsley, and spoon it out over a big bowl of steamed rice and there are very few, if any, other dishes which can even come close to this as "comfort food!"
Ingredients
	6 cups water + 2 cans chicken broth 6 meaty hambones, each cut crosswise in 2-inch slices 6 oz. lean bacon, cut in small pieces 4 Tbsp. bacon pan drippings 2 cups yellow onions, diced 1 cup celery, diced ¼ cup parsley, minced 1 Tbsp. garlic, minced ½ cup green onions 2 bay leaves 1 lb. butterbeans (large limas) ¼ tsp. thyme 2 tsp. sweet basil 2 small tomatoes, skinned, seeded and diced 1 tsp. crushed red pepper 1 tsp. salt (if necessary 6 cups cooked long grain rice 4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Instructions

First, combine the water and the chicken broth in an 8-quart stockpot, drop in the hambone slices, and bring the pot to a boil. Then immediately, reduce the fire to low, cover the pot tightly, and allow the ham and the broth to simmer gently for about an hour. This creates the rich stock you will use to cook the beans.

In the meantime, in a 4-quart Dutch oven, fry down the bacon pieces until they begin to turn crispy (but don’t let them brown too much). Then immediately drop in the onions, celery, parsley, garlic, green onions, and bay leaves and cook the veggies in the bacon pan-drippings until they wilt.

It’s at this time that you add the butterbeans to the pot. But to obtain the best results you need to follow the procedure carefully!

Place the full pound of beans, which you’ve washed in a colander under cool running water and picked through for debris, into the Dutch oven. Now, briskly stir them into the hot seasoning vegetables—this allows them to hydrate and absorb moisture, reducing their gaseous content and serving to soften their outer hulls. Ideally, you now want to "cook and toss" the beans and the pot seasonings over a medium heat, stirring constantly to keep anything from sticking to the bottom. Then, after about five minutes, sprinkle in the thyme and basil, along with the crushed red pepper, and stir in the diced tomato. Hint: under no circumstances should you leave out the tomato! It totally dissolves in the mix, is undistinguishable, and alone creates an unbelievable flavor enhancement!

At his point, pour in 6 cups of the ham stock (along with about a half-dozen or so of the meatiest hambones you can scoop out of the poaching pot), stir everything together until mixed uniformly, and bring the contents of the Dutch oven to a rapid boil. But immediately reduce the heat to low, stir one more time, cover the pot, and cook the bean mixture for about an hour to an hour and a half, stirring occasionally. Note: if some of the stock evaporates during cooking and the liquid reduces too much, simply add a little extra—you should have extra stock in the pot in which you simmered the hambones. Remember, though, you want two things to happen here:

1—You want the butterbeans to come out creamy, not watery; so add extra stock a little at a time, sparingly. And

2—Don’t overcook the beans! Cooked right, they will turn creamy—you don’t want them to disintegrate into soup! You want them to remain whole but soft and buttery to the bite!

Finally, about 15 minutes before you're ready to serve them, adjust the seasoning with salt and black pepper to your taste. Then, when you're ready to eat, spoon out a big helping of hot rice into a bowl and generously ladle the beans over the top. All that's left is to garnish the plate with a sprinkling of thinly sliced green onions and a splash of extra virgin olive oil.

Of course, you should have a few of those big ol’ hambones still in the poaching pot. One of those on a saucer to pick at on the side will make it all finger-licking good!

Chef's Hints

You can usually buy hambones quite inexpensively from neighborhood sandwich shops, supermarket meat counters, or honey-glazed ham stores. In New Orleans, one good source is Logan Farms on Veterans Highway. Similar stores can probably be found in your area.

The canned chicken broth acts as the catalyst that gets the ham stock going. You should always use a light stock (half broth/half water) to form a good cooking base that doesn’t overpower and lets other flavors—such as the beans, in this case—come through.

Instead of using thyme, basil, bay leaves and all the individual seasonings, you can substitute a teaspoon of Frank Davis Sicilian Seasoning in its place.

As is the case with red beans, white beans, pinto beans, black beans and black-eye peas, butterbeans taste 100% better the next day, so don’t be reluctant to cook them a day in advance. Of course, I honestly don’t know anybody who ever waited till the next day!

To make the country-fried cornmeal pancakes, take a big bowl and a wire whisk and whip together 1 beaten egg, 2 cups of buttermilk, 1/3 cup of all purpose flour, 1-1/2 cups of plain yellow corn meal, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 cup of corn oil or margarine, and 1 teaspoon of salt just until smooth (don’t over whip). Then heat up a non-stick skillet until a drop of water dances off in a sizzle, pour in a scant amount of corn oil, and ladle in the cornbread mix in portions about the size of coffee table drink coasters. Cook them on one side until large bubbles appear in the batter and the bottom side turns golden brown; then flip them over and continue to cook them until they stop steaming and the flip side browns too. It’s like making pancakes, only crispy ones!