Succotash

A few months back when my family was visiting us here in Charleston, we ate at one restaurant (Acme Kitchen of the Lowcountry on Isle of Palms) where Curtis and I tried succotash for the first time. We haven’t stopped talking about it since. I understand it’s a pretty common Southern meal, but what made this one unique and delicious is that it featured a bacon cream sauce with the meal. We wrote down roughly what all the other ingredients were, and I vowed to someday recreate that fabulous meal.

Well, I finally did it this week, and we fell in love with it all over again – it’s safe to say this will become a staple in my recipe repertoire. It’s a no-bake recipe (which is a necessity during a hot and humid summer) it is relatively cheap to make, and it left plenty of leftovers (and tasted just as good when reheated)! That’s a win on all accounts.

Today I’m sharing my recipe with you – partially because it’s too good to keep to myself, but also because I need another place to write down the recipe to remember it. 😉

Succotash with Bacon Cream

Serves 6-8 | 30 minutes to make | inspired by Acme Kitchen of the Lowcountry

Ingredients:

5 strips of bacon
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 Tbsp butter/margarine
1 cup kidney beans
1 cup corn
1 cup butter beans
1 cup field peas
1 cup snow peas
½ onion, diced

• I used canned beans, peas, and corn because I had it all on hand – one can (drained) of each worked fine. Maybe someday I’ll cook up my own beans and improve it that much more, but the savory bacon cream completely hides the familiar taste of “canned beans” 🙂

• When we ate this at the restaurant, we ordered it with shrimp. I didn’t have any, and in order to keep this a more “frugal” weeknight meal, we left it out. But feel free to add that if you want (Acme Kitchen also serves it with fried chicken or scallops)

Bacon Cream: Fry the bacon in a large skillet on the stove to desired level of crispy-ness. Remove bacon and reduce heat to medium low. Add the cream and butter to the bacon grease and stir. Reduce the sauce by half, stirring constantly for about a minute. Cut up the bacon and add it back in, then start adding all the other ingredients to the mixture! I used a wok because it’s the biggest skillet I have, and all of this really filled it up. Stir, then cover and let it cook through for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

We easily got 6 heaping servings from this one recipe. All together, it’s bursting in warmth and flavor, but the bacon cream is what really brings it all together and makes it outstanding.