Ramps, bacon, and hush puppies

As is the case every early Spring, my relatives in and around Richwood hook me up with a metric shitload of freshly dug ramps to enjoy:

Since I was out of potatoes the other day, I decided to have ramps with bacon and hush puppies (in place of fried taters). First up, I had to clean the ramps:


After cutting off the roots and scrubbing the dirt and purple skin off of the ramps, I allowed them drain off some of the water from the wash, as they will be going into hot bacon fat in a few minutes:


I always chop my ramps into rough .75" to 1.25" strips. I try to avoid a uniform cut to maintain the rustic nature of the dish:


Meanwhile, I fried up some bacon in a skillet. When making ramps, try to use as good of a bacon as you can afford. I used to uncured bacon from the Kroger in Barboursville. The better the bacon, the better the fat, the better that ramps:


When the bacon was finished I allowed the meat to drain on a paper towel and I poured the excess fat into my obligatory back-of-stove bacon grease cup, leaving just enough in the skillet to cook the ramson:

Then it was time to cook the ramps. Note that I don't parboil them first. I find that any pre-cooking makes them turn out slimy, so they go straight into the hot fryin' pan:

They cook:

And brown:

Until they are fried to perfection:

After the ramps were finished, I tossed the bacon and the hush puppies (I had baked the frozen puppies beforehand) into the skillet to let them pick up some of the ramp essence:

I then got to eat 'em all up with a glass of Amber Bock:


It turned out quite well. The ramps were just how I like them, the bacon had just a touch of ramp flavor, and the pups proved to be a worthy substitution for the taters, especially when splashed with malt vinegar.

Check back over the next few weeks for more adventures in cooking with ramps.