Glen's Red Beans and Rice

 

 Glen is an agriculture area right on the Sacramento River in Northern California. Every
year the local Glenn Pheasant Association ((530) 934-3606) raise some 500 birds for
local release a few weeks before the pheasant hunting season begins. Hunters have a
limited season and perhaps cull less that 10% of these birds; hence California now has
more pheasants than in their original indigenous range of Nepal through Tibet, Northern
Burma including northwest China. To hunt pheasant, you must possess a valid California
hunting license, an upland game bird stamp, enjoy sloshing around in soaking wet attire,
be good at lifting your feet cover with five or six pounds of muddy clay while negotiating
precariously uneven fields caused by the wake of the harvesters way back in September.
The area grows millet, sorghum, rice and beans all of which these birds love.
Local farmers eat simply, many, the food they grow themselves. This is one of those
dishes, probably traditionally from the Old South. My son and I ate it many cold winter
afternoons while consoling ourselves to the fact that in 8 years pheasant hunting, the only
bird we ever shot was with a camera equipped with a telephoto lens.

1 pound (or so) of dried red beans
4 Smoked Ham Hocks (have butcher saw this in quarters)
Parsley or green onions as garnish
10 bay leaves
1 tablespoon crushed black pepper
Instant beef stock granules is used as salt to correct the seasoning

Add ingredients in a kettle cover with cold water. Cook on low 4-5 hours
until meat falls apart and beans are tender. Add water as necessary, but allow
stock to reduce down the last hour. Correct seasoning.
Cook rice the last hour the beans are cooking in an oven-proof pot equipped
with a lid.

2 cups premium long grain jasmine white rice
3 3/4 cup of unsalted boiling water
Add rice, cover, and bring to a boil on high. Put the covered rice pot
in 350 F oven for 45 minutes.

Ladle beans over a serving of rice. Butter two slices of rustic country bread.
Serve atop rice plate on presentation.