collard greens: is there anything more southern

about 1 1/2 lb ham hocks
1/4 c sugar
1/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp grated garlic
1/4 c grated sweet yellow onion
64 oz chicken stock
3/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp pepper vinegar
1 Tbsp hot sauce
1 large bunch of collard greens
up to 2 c water

combine ham hocks, sugars, salt and pepper, garlic, onion, and chicken stock.  cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for an hour.  add the collar greens, vinegars, and hot sauce to the slow cooker.  pour boiled liquid into the slow cooker.  if there is room for the ham hocks, add them.  if there is not room, you can either discard them, add them when there is room, or pull the meat off and add it in with the collards.  add water if needed.  cook on high for 30 minutes to an hour turning and stirring the collard greens every 15 minutes until covered by liquid.  reduce to low and cook for 6 hours

A quick lesson in getting a bunch of collards down to bite size collard greens.  First, hold the stem with one hand.  With your other hand grip the stem at the end of the huge leaf.  Pull up.  Two things should happen: the leaf will rip away from the stem and the stem will break at a point that can be cooked to be edible.  Much of the stem is too hard and impossible to cook down to be edible but a little bit at the top will cook just fine.

Next, rip the leaf into pieces that will be bite size when they cook down, not what would immediately be bite size as that will be too small when cooked down.

Last, wash the collard greens.  Completely clean the sides and bottom of the sink.  Fill with cold water.  Drop collard greens in and push them down to wash.  The bunch I bought had been rinsed but there was dirt on them.  They should be washed even if they come rinsed or washed because you don't want to bite down on grit after you have spent all the time slow cooking them.

They cook down.  They cook way down.  You gotta know this when you are making collard greens because otherwise you'll wonder who ate 'em before you could.

Cooked 15 minutes on high.

Cooked 30 minutes on high and 6 hours on low.

I knew that I really wanted to make some collard greens while I was home in the south but wasn't 100% sure how to make them.  I had made them once before by standing over a huge stock pot stirring constantly for hours.  I knew I was not going to do that.  So using a slow cooker was an absolute must.

Next I went searching for a really good recipe.  I looked on line and was surprised that many of the recipes didn't call for vinegar, and those that did only called for a tablespoon.  Vinegar is such an important flavor I just could not understand why finding a recipe that called for more vinegar was so impossible to find.  My cousin-in-law David makes damn good collard greens so I inevitably turned to him.  He reminded me of a little secret I use when making cucumber tomato salad: add sugar.  I immediately knew that I could put in a substantial amount of vinegar (which David also does).  The sugar cuts the harsh vinegar flavor leaving behind what you expect and (and this is a big and) the sugar does not add sweetness to the collards.

Important rule #1: You can use sugar for more than sweetness!

Of course, collard greens should still be served with pepper sauce (spicy peppers in vinegar) but now you will need less.  When something is cooked with a flavor (collards with vinegar), that something takes on the flavor and needs less added just before you eat it.

Important rule #2:  If you want something to have a certain flavor when eating, you should cook that something with that flavor.  (Another good examples of this is pasta with salt.)

ps Feel free to use fewer ham hocks.  The smallest package I could find had all three ham hocks and weighed 1.5 pounds so I got it and used it all!