I made this recipe with what I had in the house, following the basic steps from what I had seen on other romanian sites. The result was very good and tasty, although I am not a bean eater, I will definitely make this recipe again.
First of all, if you have time and plan to make beans with ham hocks, it would be good to put it in water for a few hours. It will boil much faster, in half an hour it will be ready.
So, choose and wash the beans.
Boil the beans, and in order to exclude the part with the bloating after eating beans, it would be good to change the water in which the beans boil. After 10 minutes of boiling, drain the water and pour in another boiling water, repeat the procedure 2-3 times.
After you have changed the 3rd water, put the ham hocks, pour the water to cover everything.
Cut an onion into quarters and together with the bay leaf, put it in the pot.
After everything starts to boil, make a small fire, cover with a lid and let it boil for about 1 hour, 1 hour and a half (Until the beans boil well)
While the beans and the ham are boiling, clean, wash the carrots and 2 onions.
Finely chop the onion (but not too much), grate the carrots.
After the beans have boiled, remove the ham from the pot and let it cool a little.
Take the bean pot off the heat.
Remove the meat from the hock and cut it into appropriate pieces, as desired.
In a large pan, sauté the onions and carrots well.
After frying the vegetables, add the meat on the stove, let it cook for 5 minutes.
Put tomato paste over the meat. I also put some homemade vegetable mix for food (it's random). Mix well and leave for a few more minutes.
Place the beans in the pot over the mixture in the pan.
If you have a small pan, do the opposite - drain the water from the beans in a plate, add the vegetables, pour a little water from the beans so that the mixture is not liquid.
Mix everything well, let it boil for about 15 minutes.
Add salt, pepper, finely chopped greens and tarragon (if you like and you have it). Extinguish the fire.
Good appetite!