Pork & Beans (House of Q Copycat Recipe!)

A Note on Selecting Beans: there is no “wrong” bean for this recipe, except for green beans, you can use your favorite beans or whatever you have on hand. For added flavour, I recommend using dry beans and boiling them along with the ham hock, also saving dirtying another dish!  But you can always skip that step for simplicity and substitute with canned beans, approx 1 can, for a total of 10 cans. That being said, if this is way too many beans for the yield you want, you can scale it back as desired but be sure to scale back the amount of Sugar & Spice BBQ Sauce, too. There’s no rule about sauce to bean ratio, it’s entirely up to your preference, so start with less and add more to taste.

Fill a large pot with water, enough to cover the ham hock (plus a few inches), and bring to a boil, covered. Reduce to low, and simmer for approx 2 hours, or until meat falls off the bone.

Once fully cooked, remove the ham hock from the pot and set it aside to cool. Add dry beans to the same water. Cook according to package directions.

Optional: Set approx a ¼  cup of the ham hock & bean water aside, you can use this later on while baking your beans to prevent them from drying out. Using this water will add more flavour, instead of watering it down.

Chop bacon into 1 inch pieces and fry. Once halfway cooked, add the chopped onions to the pan. When bacon is almost finished cooking, add garlic for 1 minute (or until translucent). Drain the oil and set the bacon bits aside. Add a little bit of salt & pepper.

When your dry beans are fully cooked, drain them, and put them into a large roasting pan or oven proof baking dish. Add the canned beans, drained.

When ham is cool enough to handle, take off the bone and pull away from fat and skin. Save the skin for cracklings.

Add the chopped ham hock, bacon, onions, bacon and approx ½ jar of House of Q Sugar & Spice BBQ Sauce. Use less at first, and add more to taste.

Mix well and cover with tin foil (or casserole dish lid, if using a casserole dish).

Bake at 275 for approx 2 ½ hours, and stir every 30 mins or so adding more of your ham hock liquid if the beans start to dry out. Add a little at a time to avoid it becoming too soupy.

Remove lid for the last 30 mins or so. This will help thicken the sauce.

In the last 30 minutes of baking, prepare the ham hock skin by thinly slicing it and put on a baking sheet with parchment. Bake the skin at 400 for approx 20 – 30 minutes, or until crispy (if they start to brown too quickly, turn the oven down to 350). Be sure to keep an eye on it so that they don’t get overcooked.

When you’re ready to serve, scoop the beans into a bowl per serving, and top with the cracklings (ham hock skin), sour cream or creme fraiche, and a little fresh parsley.