Bring Good Luck To The New Year With Black Eyed Peas
I just learned from three different people that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is a Southern tradition to bring good luck and prosperity. According to Wikipedia,
The traditional meal also features collard, turnip, or mustard greens and ham. Since they swell when cooked, the peas symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion.
I’ve also read about a similar tradition in Italy in my newly acquired Christmas gift subscription to La Cucina Italiana cooking magazine. Here, they eat lentils with cotechino (a pork sausage made with ground pork, pork rinds, fatback, and spices) to bring in the New Year for prosperity.
The lentils represent upcoming wealth because they are coin-shaped, and the pig, “an animal that eats while moving forward, symbolizes good luck in the future.”
I found a great-looking recipe for Black-Eyed Pea Stew with Sausage in my latest issue of Food & Wine that I adapted for my family. It is easy to make and tastes great for any of you who would like some good fortune in 2010.
The biggest change I made was to add sweet sausage to the recipe that called for hot sausage because I knew my wife and kids wouldn’t eat the hot stuff. In fact, if I make it again, I might just stick with the sweet sausage even though I love spicy food, and it’s easy to differentiate the hot and sweet by color.
Black-Eyed Peas
Of course, I’ve heard of black-eyed peas, and I’m sure I’ve eaten them when traveling down south, but I can’t remember ever cooking with them. They have their signature black spot on a pale, cream-colored outer layer.
Originally from India, they came to the United States via the West Indies in the 1600s.
I like cooking with black-eyed peas because you don’t have to soak them overnight like many other beans I often cook with. This makes it easy to make a soup or a stew like this at a moment’s notice and not have to resort to canned beans.
Another dish prepared in the South on New Year’s Day is Hoppin’ John, a version of a classic dish of rice and beans served in the Caribbean. It includes black-eyed peas, rice, onion, and bacon or fatback. Like the lentil, the black-eyed peas are supposed to symbolize coins. Again, according to Wikipedia,
On the day after New Year’s Day, leftover “Hoppin’ John” is called “Skippin’ Jenny,” and further demonstrates one’s frugality, bringing hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year.
Black-Eyed Pea Stew With Sausage Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2½ pounds hot and/or sweet Italian sausage
- 1 yellow onion diced
- 1 red bell pepper seeded, sliced and diced
- ½ fennel bulb diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced fine
- 14 ounce can chopped tomatoes drained
- 2 cups dried black-eyed peas
- 4 cups chicken stock homemade is great but commercial is good too
- 3 cups water t
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 bunch cilantro
Instructions
- You can start by preparing your ingredients (mise en place). This is how the pros do it, making the entire job much more manageable. This means chopping and dicing your vegetables, rinsing the black-eyed peas, and ensuring no little stones are in them.
- Heat up a large soup pot or one of those nice cast iron casserole pots if you have one on medium high heat.
- Add the oil and wait until it gets hot enough to shimmer but not smoke.
- Add the sausages and cook until they are brown on the outside and cooked through on the inside. This should take about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the sausages from the pot and transfer to a large plate or bowl.
- Brown the onion, bell pepper, fennel, and garlic in the same pot. The sausage should have enough oil and fat to cook them nicely. Be sure to move the vegetables around so they don't burn. Depending on your stove top and pot, this should take 5 to 8 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and let them cook down for about 5 minutes.
- Add the washed black-eyed peas, chicken stock, and water. Bring this to a boil, cover partially, reduce heat, and simmer until the black-eyed peas become tender. This can take 1¼ hours to 1½ hours.
- Slice the reserved sausage on the diagonal into ½ inch slices and add them to the pot. Be sure to add the accumulated juices from the sausages on the plate. It adds lots of additional flavor.
- Taste the stew and add the salt and pepper to taste.
- Chop and add about ¼ cup of fresh cilantro to the pot and simmer for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Stew is ready.
2 Responses
I just invested in some kitchen equipment and yours if the first recipe that I tried with my new setup! I loved the stew. I made it with chicken and turkey sausage instead of pork and it was great! This was a great recipe to ring in the new year.
Thanks Seth for sharing. – RG
Hi, do you have a cooking starter kit for dishes,including food and instruction dvd???