Crockpot Hambone with White Beans

Crockpot Hambone with White Beans

There's nothing more pedestrian, yet comforting as crockpot cooking. Over the years I've made many improvised crockpot dishes - some hit, some miss. My fear with this dish was ending up with something too sweet and too salty due to the Honeybaked hambone. I thought adding some texture (via finely chopped celery) would help as well as adding a layer of flavor that the crock doesn't deliver by pre-cooking the onions and garlic. The stars aligned this year resulting in a luscious, well balanced dish. I decided, best write this one down. I found a crayon and a scrap of paper then transposed it here.

1 hambone (This year's was a Honeybaked spiral cut ham with all of the slices removed.)
1# Great Northern beans (white beans) (Do not soak.)
6c chicken stock (I prefer stock paste + water which is much less salty, not bouillon.)
1t oregano
1t hot Hungarian paprika
1t pepper
1t cumin
3 bay leaves
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 onions, halved & sliced thinly.
1/2T butter

Caramelise sliced onions in butter. (Slowly cook in a frying pan, stirring occasionally. Do not burn or brown them too quickly. They should slowly become a caramel brown color. It takes about 20-30 minutes.) Add garlic for a few mintues. Add onions and garlic to crock and de-glaze frying pan with celery.

Combine the rest of the ingredients, cover and cook for 8 hours. (Over cooking will result in mushy, split beans and a strong marrow flavor from the bone.) Gently remove bone toward the end of cooking and fold in ham pieces. Leave the larger pieces of ham to fall apart on their own. Serve on rice (We used a Texmati / brown rice blend, which complemented the dish well.)

[If the dish happens to come out too fatty, salty, or sweet I thought trimming or removing the outer layer of the Honeybaked hambone would help, although this time I didn' think it was necessary.]