North America · Volume 33, The Rice Coast, the Corridor and the Delta
Collard greens with pork, and pot likker
Interior Deep South
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 2 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Serves 4 to 6. About 2 hours.
Ingredients
- 1kg collard greens, stemmed and roughly chopped
- 200g smoked ham hock or pork neck
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 litre water or stock
- to taste vinegar, hot sauce, salt
Method
- Simmer the ham hock in the water or stock for an hour to build a base broth.
- Add the onion and greens, and simmer slowly, uncovered or partially covered, for a further hour, until the greens are fully tender and the pork is falling from the bone.
- Season with salt, and serve the greens with plenty of their own pot likker, alongside a splash of vinegar or hot sauce and cornbread for dipping.
Notes
This chapter treats the widely repeated claim that enslavers denied the more nutritious pot likker to enslaved people as a folk claim worth naming rather than a document this research could verify.
What a modern chef changes
The pork cooked separately for texture, its rendered fat and gelatine used to build a more concentrated pot likker
Rung 4
Method
- Cook the ham hock separately under sous vide until fully tender, reserving both the meat and its rendered fat and gelatine, then build the pot likker itself as a reduced, concentrated stock using that fat and gelatine, before adding the greens to simmer only as long as they themselves need, rather than the traditional two-hour joint simmer, keeping the greens' own texture and colour brighter while the broth still carries full pork depth.