Pork & Great Northerns

Great Northern beans are probably the best beans on earth this side of lentils. On cold winter weekends, soup with Great Northern beans and some pork really hits the spot. The rich, thick, and starchy soup sticks to your ribs as any comfort food should. The classic pork in our staple recipe is cured ham hocks. Lately, I’ve been smoking the hocks to add another layer of flavor. The most recent batch included pork neck bones. Neck bones and hocks are cheap as supermarket cuts of meat goes. Dry beans are less than a buck. This dish is budget friendly which is always nice.

Smoking hocks takes more care than one would assume. Smoking until done renders a lot of the fat out. Since you want that in your soup, pull them off the smoker early and finish in the crock pot. My hocks go in unseasoned. The neck bones, pictured below, were seasoned, but its your call. Know that any seasoning used for the smoker will find its way into the soup.

The hocks will render down further in the crock pot. The meat will seperate easily from the rind and bone, which should be discarded. Once the neck bones were done, I pulled the meat form them and to the hocks. You can use dry beans that you hydrate yourself.  To hydrate overnight for each pound (2 cups) dry-packaged beans, add 10 cups cold water and let soak overnight, or at least 8 hours.  Canned beans work just as well.  3-4 pints of beans to 4-6 hocks is a fine ratio.  If you make more than you can consume, this soup freezes and reheats well.