Black eyed peas

I was cooking a New Orleans dinner on the weekend and black eyed peas seemed like a a real southern dish so I found a recipe in John Besh's "My New Orleans" Cookbook.  I followed the recipe mostly, though I am incapable of following a recipe to the letter and it made a very tasty dish.

1/4 cup of rendered bacon fat (I used 5 rashers of bacon cut into pieces)
2 small onions diced
1 stalk of celery diced
1 pound of dried black-eyed peas
1 pound of smoked ham hocks or pork jowls
2 bay leaves

I cooked the bacon in a large pot until they had rendered their fat.

Then add the onion and celery and cook until the onions are translucent.

Add the black-eyed peas and the pork hock (I cut some strips off mine as it was very large and I think will make some soup with the remainder). Pour water to cover the beans with 2 inches on top.  Add the bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Then turn down and simmer for about 2 hours until the peas are soft but not falling apart. I had to add water once as it had all soaked up before they were ready.

Peas cooking

Simmer until cooked, and to quote John Besh "We don't want the peas to overcook so they explode in the pot; we want them soft enough to burst in your mouth".  The recipe in the book said to serve over rice, but I decided to serve the rice separately, it also said to add tabasco at the end, but I forgot that.  Any way I removed the bay leaves and shredded the meat off the pork hocks and discarded the skin and served a suitable bean pot.