Papa Legba

Papa Legba is a soup I make every New Year (or so). Well, almost every year, I don't think I made it last year, when I was four days into a divorce.



It started as a recipe I got watching Caprial back when I had cable. Bill Clinton was President when I last had cable, so it's been awhile, and recipes kind of tend to morph with me.

Basically:

Take a ham bone from a good ham, or two smoked ham hocks, simmer them in vegetable and/or chicken broth with 1 diced tomato in a crock pot for 6 hours or more. Separate the meat from the bones and gristle.

Sautee in 4 tbsp olive oil:

1 large diced onion
4 diced carrots
4 diced celery stalks
8 cloves minced garlic

pour de-boned stock over sauté and simmer with 6 cans of black beans (juice and all), chipotle peppers to taste (I use six to eight crushed pods) for an hour.



Add 1 lb of andouille sausage. You get this at Fritz's* or don't bother. If there's anything else like theirs, it's news to me. Simmer for another hour to thicken.

I also made a bread to go with this.




I started with a basic wheat bread dough and added some stuff:

1-3/4 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
2 packets quick-rise yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup maple syrup**

Knead and allow it to rise for 45 minutes. Bake for 30 minutes at 350º.



I was going to braid it but I was hungry and didn't want to wait for it to rise a second time, so I scored it as risen and cooked it as a round bread. It's not a dessert type thing, it's only faintly sweet. You can barely detect the maple, you might miss it if you didn't know it was there. But it's a good, moist bread to go with the spicy soup.



*It's not really $8 a pound if you go there and pick it up. But if you live further than I do, order it in bulk and let them ship it. I'm about 45 minutes away, which with the price of gas is almost too far to drive.

**The real thing. I have a tin of it I bought for Em to try on pancakes way back, but she prefers the fake stuff.