Hambone Soup

Hambone from Thanksgiving in hand, I needed a recipe. I searched and browsed and perused and honed-in before finding the perfect selection: the Ham-Bone Soup recipe posted over there on Drick's Rambling Cafe's site. The part that cinched it for me was the Creole seasoning requirement. If you'll remember, I have a ton of Creole Seasoning Blend.

What I didn't know was that Drick had his own Creole Seasoning until I prepared this post. As Drick is specialized in southern food, including Creole, I'd certainly give his seasoning a spin.

Hambone Soup

adapted from Drick's Rambling Cafe
click to print

1 1/2 lbs mixed dried beans including navy, green split pea, and lentils
3 quarts water
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp + 2 tsp Creole Seasoning Blend, divided

1 left-over hambone
1 c chopped ham

2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 large onion, diced
1 large potato, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 c chopped fresh parsley or freeze-dried (I used the dry stuff)
Pinch of thyme

8 c chicken broth (from Better Than Bouillon)
1 14.5 oz can corn

2 -14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Day 1

Rinse beans in a deep bowl several times.

I measured my beans by mass, going over by a smidge, before rinsing them well in the same 8 cup vessel.

Transfer beans into a slow cooker; add the water. Remove any unwanted beans -- I assumed the floating ones were bad ones.

There appears to be a piece of white plastic up there between 11:00 and 12:00 in the photo above-right. I hope I saw that back then and removed it!

Add the vinegar and 2 tbsp Creole Seasoning Blend. Cover and cook on warm heat overnight.

Meanwhile, do mise-en-place for dry ingredients (hambone, chopped ham, garlic, onion, potato, carrots, celery, pepper, parsley and thyme, plus the 2 remaining tsp of Creole Seasoning Blend), cover and stow it in the fridge.

Day 2

Transfer the mise-en-place ingredients into an 8-quart or greater saucepan/stockpot and stir in the chicken broth. Bring to a low boil and reduce to a slow simmer for a couple of hours.

It took about 10 minutes for my pot to get to a boil over medium-high heat.

Meanwhile, I opened the lid to the Crock Pot, still set on warm, and took a look at the beans.

Hmm, pretty scummy looking. Digging around in there, I found that the lentils and split-peas were tender while navy beans were still hard after more than 12 hours on warm. I kept the heat on.

Skim any grease and scum from the top of the soup broth.

Remove the bone(s) and let cool if necessary before pulling meat from the bone(s) and shredding the resulting meat.

Transfer the drained beans and ham to pot, bring to just under a boil and then simmer on low until beans are done and mixture has thickened just a bit, about an hour.


Stir in the corn and tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste. If your beans are still firm like mine, hold off on the tomatoes. Continue cooking the soup on low another hour or until beans are softened.

An hour and 20 minutes later, my navy beans weren't the softest, but somewhat softened. I stirred in the tomatoes. And then, 30 minutes later, I remembered the salt and pepper. If your beans were soft enough that you'd added your tomatoes, salt, and pepper with the corn, dish it up and chow!

My soup was allowed to simmer another 30 minutes to let the tomatoes, salt and pepper to become infused with the entire mixture.

Serve with a crusty bread.


While it took a lot longer than I'd expected to complete this soup due to my navy beans staying firm, the soup was just as good as I'd anticipated! I think that if I'd stuck more closely to Drick's recipe, the results would've been even better. Everything was cooked well (my navy beans could've been cooked a little longer) and the soup was thicker than soupy, which is my preference.

Regarding things I should not have adjusted is the quantity of ham and dice of tomatoes. I didn't have quite as much chopped ham as Drick's recipe called for (I ate the majority of ham as leftovers before prepping the soup!) and it showed, even though I pulled quite a lot of meat from the bones -- it is essentially a ham soup, right? Secondly, Drick's recipe called for petite-diced tomatoes. As I had regular diced tomatoes on hand, I rolled with them. Mistake. Trust me, you want to go with the petite unless you like glaring hunks of hot tomato in your ham soup.

Would I do this soup again? Bet your ass I would. Next time I'll heed the above paragraph plus I'd use more of the beans Drick's had listed as possibilities. This first time, I used just what I had on hand. Best of all, this soup freezes very well*.

Cost:

• navy beans: $0.50
• green split peas: $0.50
• lentils: $1.10
• garlic: $0.10
• onion: $0.25
• potato: $0.77
• carrots: $0.54
• celery: $0.50
• broth: $0.23
• corn: $1.50
• diced tomatoes: $0.32

Total: $6.31, assuming your hambone and ham were free. That makes each of nine 1.5 cup servings $0.70. Yep, 70 cents.

FYI: I opted to bake a batch of Cheddar-Zucchini Biscuits (using regular sharp cheddar found anywhere for less than $24/lb) and let me tell you right now, while they are awesome, they won't go quite as well with the soup as the corn or French bread Drick suggested would.

*Here's the soup I didn't eat. That's about 24 cups of soup dished into various bowls. Those in the left, uh, column are 4-cup bowls, the three in the center column are 2-cup bowls and the big bowl on the right handles 6-cups. I'll freeze a bunch, but leave some of the soup in the fridge for dinners this week.

Here's a perfect example of when the Anchor Hocking (or Pyrex) bowls come into play at my apartment. The soup is dispersed across multiple bowls expediting cooling. Once cool, the lids are snapped on and placed in freezer/fridge. That they stack nicely is great, saving space. Note: when putting a bunch of dishes into the fridge or freezer, don't stack them immediately as they'll only retain each others heat. Spread 'em out, let 'em chill/freeze, then stack.

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