This recipe is very, very old. Some references to it date back to the 1800s in the Maritimes.
My grandmother would have grown up with it, in very rural Albert County, NB. It was a common meal for poor farming families at the end of the harvest. They used fresh, newly harvested small potatoes & beans from their garden; and butter & cream (not milk for this one!) from their cow. It was very, very simple … and very, very delicious!
My parents & grandparents had a garden that they tended at our cottage every summer. This was a staple meal (at any time of the year!) in our home. I grew up not realizing that anyone else had ever heard of it … I thought it was just something that Grammy & Mom made up since, growing up in Ontario, no one else ate it or had ever heard of it! Several years ago, looking on old New Brunswick sites, I found it is a very common Maritime dish! If you Google it, you will find many variations of the recipe! We only ever called it “Green Beans & New Potatoes”, but I discovered it has a formal (though somewhat old-fashioned) name of “Hodge Podge”.
I made a big batch, to share with mom & dad.
Amounts are never measured, but I tried to make note here.
To feed 8 I used:
About 5 lbs of medium/small new potatoes, washed, but not peeled. I halved the small ones, and quartered the medium ones.
Put these into a large Dutch oven pot of boiling, salted water.
Add about 4-5 lbs (combined) of green & yellow beans, washed & stem ends trimmed
[Many recipes call for fresh shelled peas. I think this would be delicious, but I just made it with beans, as what I grew up with.]
Cover & boil until the veggies are tender.
Drain and return to the pot.
Add:
1 cup salted butter
1.5 L of half & half cream (if you think that’s bad, some recipes call for “heavy”!)
1 tsp salt
Cracked pepper
Turn the heat down to very low, cover loosely so that any steam can escape, and keep hot for one hour (or longer, if you can). You don’t want it to simmer or cook at this point; you just want to give it time for the cream to soak into every bite, and let the flavours combine.
Don’t worry if potato skins come off, and things look a bit mushy … That’s all the better!
This used to be served as a main dish, almost like a stew. I will serve it with fresh sourdough bread, and some cold ham.
Leftovers are even tastier, and less runny, the next day.
Kerr Family Recipes 