ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Super Greens and Crusty Cornbread - Soul Food Recipes

Updated on September 17, 2012
greens and cornbread
greens and cornbread | Source

Soul Food Recipes

I grew up eating soul food recipes and didn’t even realize it at the time. As a child, I thought everyone in the world ate the same type of food that we did – fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits, smoked ham, rice, grits, fried okra, stewed squash, and such. Even after I was old enough to realize that southern food was different and special, I still didn’t quite understand the soul food connection – that slaves from Africa introduced many cooking methods and foods to the U.S. South. That’s why it’s almost impossible to separate the terms “soul food” and “southern food.” The two types of cuisine aren’t 100% alike, but there’s plenty of overlap, so it can be confusing even for native southerners. I’m sure it’s even more confusing for folks from other parts of the country. Call it whatever you like – soul food, southern cuisine, Gullah, Geechee, country cooking, or down home food. The term isn’t important. What matters is the incredible flavor! Today I’m sharing with you two great soul food recipes with pictures.

How to Cook Greens
How to Cook Greens | Source
Season your greens.
Season your greens. | Source

How to Cook Greens

Do you want to learn how to cook greens? First, let’s make sure you know what greens are. In the Deep South, “greens” means cooked turnip greens, mustard greens, or collard greens. When you buy fresh greens, there’s often a fair amount of work between the purchase and the pot. Greens can be incredibly sandy, and all that sand has to be gotten rid of. I usually fill my kitchen sink with cold water and soak the greens for a few minutes, swishing them around to loosen any dirt and debris. I might repeat this process several times before the greens are clean. Of course, this largely depends on how dirty they were to start with.

Once the greens are clean, they need to be trimmed. Large, tough stems need to be stripped away. Once that’s done, the tender parts of the leaves can be torn, cut, or chopped. Now the greens are ready to cook. They can be sautéed, but most older southern cooks prefer the boiling method.

To boil greens, you’ll need a large pot with a lid. A pound of leaves will look like a lot, but they’ll cook down significantly, so don’t worry about having too many in the pot. You’ll need some seasoning, too. For fat, the tradition is to use bacon, bacon grease, ham hock, or pieces of smoked ham. Other popular seasonings include salt, of course, along with black pepper, red pepper, onion, garlic, and sugar.

The greens need to simmer until they’re tender. This usually takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how many greens you’re cooking at one time and on how tender you want them to be.

Seasonings are often simmered for a few minutes before vegetables are added.
Seasonings are often simmered for a few minutes before vegetables are added.

Seasonings – Cooking Spices

Many soul food dishes use a lot of seasonings. Because so many slaves had to make do with cheap foods that often didn’t have a lot of flavor on their own, the cooks spiced up their dishes with lots of cooking spices and other ingredients. These often included smoked or cured pork in some form. Pigs were pretty cheap to raise, and they didn’t require much space. Plenty of southern slaves kept their own pig or two, and practically every inch of the porkers was used.

Other popular seasonings included bell peppers, hot peppers, vinegar, onion, garlic, and celery. For sweetness, ingredients might include cane syrup, honey, or molasses. Of course, soul food cooks today have access to all sorts of cooking spices, and they take full advantage of them. Some popular cooking spices you’ll see in southern cooking include cayenne, paprika, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, crushed red pepper, thyme, and celery salt. Bouillon is used a lot, too.

What is soul food seasoning? As a shortcut, I sometimes use a soul food seasonings blend. The exact ingredients in these blends depend somewhat on the brand you use. The one I have in my kitchen cabinets right now includes salt, cayenne, paprika, black pepper, garlic, and onion. Other brands may vary slightly.

Super Greens!
Super Greens! | Source

Super Greens

Why do I call these super greens? I do so because they’re, well…super! The broth is rich, savory, smoky, and tasty, and the greens are tender and full of flavor. By the way, in the South, we call the broth “pot liquor.” My dad used to say that cornbread was invented with the sole purpose of sopping up the pot liquor from greens. I know this is a tall tale, but greens and cornbread do go together perfectly! For this recipe, you can use mustards, collards, or turnip greens. Oh, be sure to have some hot pepper vinegar on hand!

Thanks for rating my recipe!

4 stars from 2 ratings of Super Greens

Cook Time

Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min
Ready in: 1 hour
Yields: 10 servings

Ingredients

  • 2 cans chicken broth
  • cooked smoked ham chunks
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 tablespoon Soul Food seasoning
  • 1 envelope ham flavoring
  • 2 teaspoons Liquid Smoke
  • 1-2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 2 chicken bouillon cubes
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 pounds greens - cleaned and torn or chopped

Instructions

  1. To a large part, add chicken broth, smoked ham, sugar, ham seasoning, Soul Food seasoning, red pepper flakes, bouillon, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Place lid on pot and reduce heat. Simmer for 10 minutes.
  2. Add 4 cups water to pot and return to a boil. Add greens. Reduce heat to medium and place lid on pot. Stir greens occasionally.
  3. Continue cooking for about 45-50 more minutes.
  4. Drain and serve with hot pepper vinegar. Save the pot liquor for cornbread.
homemade cornbread
homemade cornbread | Source
bottom crust
bottom crust | Source

Crusty Cornbread Recipe

If you’re looking for a recipe for cornbread that produces a wonderful brown crust, this is it. Crusty cornbread isn’t as much about the ingredients as it is the cooking technique involved. Actually, the crust is my favorite part. When I was a little girl, I loved my grandmother’s homemade cornbread. It always had a thick, crunchy crust on the exterior. I used to beg her to make a pan of cornbread that was all crust. Yeah, I know now that it’s not possible to do so, but with this cornbread recipe, a nice brown crust that’s thick and crunchy is achieved.

Ingredients:

2 cups white self-rising cornmeal

1 ½ cups self-rising flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

¼ cup + 2 tablespoons oil

Directions: Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk buttermilk and eggs together. Combine the two. Stir in ¼ cup oil.

Pour 2 tablespoons oil in black iron skillet and place on medium-high stove burner. Tilt pan so that sides and bottom are coated. When oil begins to smoke, remove from heat and pour in batter.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover with a plate. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes, then invert skillet. Tap on bottom of skillet to loosen cornbread, if needed.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)