SAMM's FAMOUS BLACK EYED PEAS

Soak a big bowl full of dried black eyed peas overnight, or at least for a few hours prior to cooking.

Take 3 onions and dice them up kinda small. Take a big, deep pot, throw in a LOT of butter (at least a stick, more if possible) and sautee those onions over a low flame, stirring often. I sometimes use a butter/olive oil mix to sautee the onions, which is tasty. Anyway, you want them to get nice and soft. Once they're getting soft, add some salt, finely ground white and black pepper, a little bit of rosemary, a healthy sprinkling of garlic powder and a few big dashes and splashes of soy sauce. Now, try your best to find good quality soy sauce. I know most folks living outside Japan, China or Korea may have difficulty finding anything besides the generic Kikkoman or whatever, but if you can find something better (perhaps you live in a big city with "oriental" food stores, Japanese grocery marts, specialty stores or whatever) then by all means cough up the extra money and get a better grade of soy sauce. Generally speaking, the more expensive the sauce (especially when we're talking Japanese brands) the better the flavor. (By the way, many people don't know this, but you should keep soy sauce in the refrigerator. Stays a lot fresher!)

Give the onions a little taste now and see what they might need: a little more soy sauce? Pepper? Keep in mind that this is the flavor base you're making for the beans, so it should be pretty strong. Make it rich! Besides the basic spices mentioned earlier, I often throw in some "Old Bay" brand seasoning, which I recommend, and/or a wee bit of Zatarain's Gumbo File' seasoning.

Now, drain the water from the soaking peas, and add them, dry, to your onions. I like to stir the dry beans around into the mix for a little while, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, so you get the feeling they're starting to kinda "roast" a little bit. Then add plenty of water. You want to more than just cover the peas: I think I usually double the water to peas ratio. The point is, you're gonna let those peas cook slowly, and let that water cook way way down, until the consisitency is thick. The onions, after, say, an hour or so of slow simmering, will totally dissolve and become part of the texture, the thickener, so to speak. Now, just let them simmer, covered or partially covered, for a long time, as long as it takes. Great art cannot be rushed. Taste them frequently, and add flavoring as required.

And voila good buddy! There's your black eyed peas!

any comments or suggestions? Please contact me, Samm Bennett, your humble chef.