Pigtail and Mayacoba Bean Soup

Cooking w/ pigtails is a blast and a half! I used them to make a rich, smoky soup w/ myacoba beans.

Here's what you need:

1 pkg mayacoba beans

1 lb smoked pig tails

1 large onion

1 clove garlic

2 bay leaves

2 turnips

2 large carrots

2 stalks celery

1 can beer

salt, pepper

water

1/4 cup louisianna hot sauce 

Myacoba beans look like pinto beans w/o the spots on them and taste pretty similar. Feel free to substitute w/ pintos or your favorite bean. You can substitute ham hocks or smoked pig knuckles for the pig tails too, which are some might weird looking meat hunks. If my mom didn't read this blog, I'd make some comments on what the bottom one looks like:

Your first step is to soak the beans. Either cover them w/ water and let them sit over night or bring to a boil and let them sit for about an hour. Drain the bean, add pigtails and cover w/ water again. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for about one hour until the beans are soft.

While you wait, dice up the onion, garlic, carrot, turnip and celery. After the beans are soft, toss them in the pot along w/ two bay leaves.

By this time, a lot of the liquid will have evoporated. Top up w/ enough beer to cover. See my recipe for pork and power kraut for the beer of my choosing for such things. Bring back to a simmer and cook about twenty minutes or until the veggies are soft. Remove the pigtails. If you want, you can try to cut up what little meat is on them and add it back to the soup. At this point, you will want to add some hotsauce. I used Louisianna Hot Sauce, which has a lot of chile flavor and just a touch of vinegar but use whatever you have around. It takes a lot for all these beans, about a quarter cup. Add a good teaspoon or two of black pepper and then salt to taste. You can serve this as a soup or pull out the beans and veggies w/ a slotted spoon and serve over rice.

Now that's some fun stuff! If you have a favorite bean or pork tail recipe, post it in the comments.