Tradition from "way back when" said Sunday was the Lord's Day and Monday, for many families, was Wash Day. In those days, washing the family's clothes was a hard work chore that took most of a full day. At many houses, wash day was scheduled for Monday, since Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes needed to be clean, sometimes mended, and ready for the next Sunday. To accomplish this meant there was little time on wash day for cooking, so dried beans and pork, simmering all day for wash day dinner became a tradition for many families.
Everyone has his favorite recipe for the dish known as Red Beans and Rice and I am no different.
Someone once told me creamy red beans were the Natchitoches style of cooking them,
and red beans left whole (tender, but not creamy) were the New Orleans style.
Regardless of any truth in that opinion, or not, I like my red beans just sor'ta a little creamy. If I cook them the way I like, they usually are not whole or mushy, just cooked until they are captured in a creamy thick bean gravy. Maybe I make mine Marksville style (halfway between Natchitoches and New Orleans). You will almost always find my red beans accompanied with rice because I like them served that way.
Not sure how you cook your red beans and rice, but here is how I do mine.
As far as I am concerned, there is only one brand of dried beans and it is Camellia. By the way, Camellia sells both Red Kidney Beans and Red Beans, The Red Beans are slightly smaller (shorter) than the Red Kidneys. In my opinion, they both taste the same. Mom always bought Kidney Beans, so I do too. More on that later.
The nice thing is that you can get Camellia Dried Red Kidney Beans pretty much anywhere there is a Walmart. Kroger, Publix, and most other places have them too. I always thought it was nice that Sam’s sells Camellia beans in 4-pound bags. I saw a guy who was buying twenty, four-pound bags at Sam’s one day. My estimation is 80 pounds of dry beans would make maybe 480 servings and would require the bean cook to have a really-really-big-big pot. Maybe he was buying supplies for a long weekend of bean cooking or a huge family reunion.
OK, I know Blue Runner makes canned beans. All I can say about that in this is not a canned bean post. We will do that recipe the week after never.
To make them my way, (6-8 servings) you need:
1 pound Camellia Red Kidney Beans
1
1/2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 Bell Pepper (green, yellow, or
red), chopped - I use whatever color I have
1 medium onion,
chopped
16 ounces Andouille sausage - regular or hot, your brand
1 Tablespoon Lawrey’s Garlic Salt
4 Tablespoons
butter
16 ounces, chicken broth
4 - 6 cups water, or more, as
needed
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon
thyme
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 Tablespoon liquid smoke
Inspect the beans for stones, bad beans, and other stuff that shouldn’t be there and rinse them well.
Some folks parboil and soak their beans overnight. I do my beans that way, too, if I know the day before that I want to cook a pot of red beans. In this case, making them was a spur of the moment decision, so I did not pre-soak them, just cooked them from dry. In my opinion, either way works fine. I am not a canned bean fan, but you do you and I'll do me.
Using a suitably sized pot, add the beans, celery, onion, bell pepper chicken broth, salt, sugar, thyme, cayenne pepper Lawry's garlic salt, liquid smoke and enough water to cover the beans. More will be added as needed during the 4-6 hour cook, as the beans hydrate and soak up water.
I will say my mom always soaked her Red Beans (also great northern beans and black eye peas) and because of that I try to soak mine too unless it is an emergency, like not knowing we were having red beans a day early. Mom never shared with us what the next day's supper would be, but I think she always knew we were having red beans at least the day before and soaked her beans according to schedule. Ergo, you might mess up if you venture too far away from how your mom did almost anything.
Doing it how mom did it:
Maybe you have heard the story about a family that was doing a baked ham dinner and a visitor saw the lady of the house cutting her ham in half before seasoning both halves the same and popping them into the oven. When asked why, she said it was how her mother always cooked her ham and that it always made the very best tasting ham, so it was the way she always cooked hers. An hour or two later, the mom showed up and the visitor asked why she baked her ham that way. The mom responded it was because she never owned a pan big enough to cook her ham in one piece so she cut it in half.
Sorry. Let me get back to my recipe.
Bring the pot to a boil, add the sausage, then reduce the heat and cook your beans at a low/slow boil.
Note: My reasoning and planning capability is never as good as it should be. When I cooked these, I started out with my cast iron Dutch oven and soon realized it was much too small for my recipe, as in RUN OVER THE TOP TOO SMALL. From here on out, my photos will show the larger pot I used after transferring my beans to one that would hold everything.
It takes a while to cook the beans and they need to be stirred every so often to make sure they are not sticking, and additional water added as needed. Did you know adding cold water to dry beans as they cook (especially Great Northern Beans), often splits the skin open and causes then to break apart?
You can pretty well judge the stage of cooking by the color of the beans. They will go from red to tan as they cook.
After a couple, or three hours of my slow boil, I begin tasting them every 30 minutes or so to see how they are going. I am checking for how tender they are and how cooked the other vegetables are. As much as the beans, I am concerned how soft the vegetables are. I expect my fully cooked beans to be tender to the point of somewhat mushy and the vegetables to be cooked to the point where they just about disappear. Normally, this takes somewhere between 4 and 6 hours, depending on hot of a setting you use on the stove, also depends on the phase of the moon, what calendar day Easter falls on, high tide time, woolly worm color, etc,
When the beans are fully cooked (very tender), I sometimes will use a potato masher to mash some of them to help make a creamy sauce for the beans when served. Sometimes, I will add another Tablespoon or two of butter. I did neither of these things when I cooked these beans because the woolly worms were closer to black than brown this year.
I like to serve my beans with a scoop of rice
and Cornbread. Always Cornbread! To make the Cornbread, I use 1 cup of white self-rising corn meal, 3/4 cup of self-rising flour and enough buttermilk to make a thick batter.
I portion this into a preheated well-seasoned cast iron skillet, with a little oil added. The cornbread is baked at 400 degrees F for 30-40 minutes, until the top has browned slightly.
My segmented skillet is cute, but not required.
I make my cornbread as whole pones, or wedges as shown here, or corn sticks, or skillet fried as Hoe Cakes. I also have a skillet that makes cupcake shaped muffins, and one that does fish. Truth is, I might have too much Cast Iron, but that is a problem I have learned to live with.
Time to eat some good Natchitoches, or New Orleans, or Marksville style Red Beans and Rice.
OK leftovers, too.
Thanks for looking at my post.
God Bless you.
23 comments:
Soak the beans on Sunday, simmer them on Monday. Every week. Takes the guesswork out of one meal per week and costs about a buck fifty a serving. Only decision is black beans or red.
That looks really good. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Why the liquid smoke instead of a nice smoked ham or sausage?
Is that 2nd picture of cornbread or saltwater bread?
Next time you journey to NOLA; stop in La Place (the andouille capital of the universe) and get some REAL andouille sausage. Made with ham & smoked over pecan. It don't get no better than that.
Been making Red Beans and Rice for 50 years. Learned from a native New Orleanian. I rarely soak my as I use a crockpot and slow cook them overnight. I use onions but skip on the others. Just chopped red peppers, cayenne pepper, garlic salt, onion salt and Tony's. Back in the day, you would break into a sweat it was so spicy but backed off of that when the kids came along. The only variation now is what kind of deer sausage to use. But, I cut mine up and fry it down just a bit before adding it to the beans.
I knew that red beans is traditionally a Monday meal but I didn't know why. That's interesting as to its origin. Thanks for sharing.
BTW - We once had a black skillet like that and have no clue where it went to. I like those because more crust the better. We do have a couple of corn stick pans though.
Great post! I've been sautéing my veggies and browning the sausage before adding to the beans, but will try your method... definitely easier and less to wash. Thanks!
Topped with a little mustard and Louisiana hot sauce, and it can't be beat.
Great recipe till the last ingredient, liquid smoke has ruined a many good meals.
As usual, the pictures make me hungry. We do it pretty much the same and they are a favorite. Love the skillet.
Option to soaking the beans overnight: Cover with water, bring to a boil and boil for 2 to 5 minutes. Let soak for one hour and you're ready to go.
To my readers:
The sausage I use is smoked but I love the smoke flavor and find liquid smoke used in moderation adds a lot to the flavor I want to achieve in my beans. Did you know that Popeye's Red Beans are made in a commissary and shipped to the restaurants in Cryovac bags? The smoky flavor of Popeye's Red Beans comes from smoked hotdogs, ground up and added to the pot at the commissary, and also from a little liquid smoke they add.
IMO, most folks who think liquid smoke is bad are simply adding too much to their food. The stuff is very concentrated, with the smoke flavor coming from a smoking process they use, followed by a reduction in the liquid until a very concentrated liquid is left. If you don't like liquid smoke, you are saying you don't like the flavor of real smoke.
You might want to consider that you might be adding too much of the bottled smoke and that is you use a lot less, you might actually like it.
If the liquid smoke bothers you, you can be happy knowing that the beans I cooked are all gone and no one asked you to eat any of them.
I bid you peace.
10:27 - the picture is skillet fried cornbread, AKA (at my house) Hoe Calke. Make the batter just like for cornbread and then skillet fry them with a little oil, like pancakes.
All looks delish, and I’m now huntin for that segmented skillet!
One difference of opinion on cornbread though: no flour. None. I’ve always used JUST self rising cornmeal (or regular cornmeal + baking powder), not even cornmeal MIX (has flour). Just white or yellow cornmeal. This makes for a more crumbly, less cake-like texture - the way I grew up with it in the Delta. Slather it with butter, and that’s some good eatin.
Looks great ZeroBear !
While my recipe is a tad bit different, it makes no difference
with the final product.
As you said ... as long as a good version works ... that's all that matters.
What's the old adage ?
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it "
I too like the segmented CI - have one of those, along with two of the sticks that you mention and one of the muffin types. Maybe I'm like you and have too much cast iron, if that is actually possible. When I'm cooking for a large crowd (40 - 60) generally just use the full CI pan and cut it and that has made me become too much acting on previous and forgetting about these neat pans that do provide much better crust.
My difference on the cornbread receipe is that I use bacon drippings to be my oil in the pan, and also add a little of it (hot) to the mix. Yeah, its how my grandmother made it (my mother, for some reason, didn't like cornbread so I didn't get it except on Sundays at GM's house).
My question though is - you didn't add an egg to your cornbread mix. Do you not do that, or was it an omission? I've always figured you can't cook anything without at least one egg added; and again, like I say, that's 'how GM did it' so I've done the same. Should we assume it works ok without an egg and this wasn't an oversight? Truthfully, it doesn't screw it up and I won't quit unless you confirm that it works just as good without it.
Liked your RB&R also; going to try your receipe soon; not much different than what I used to do, but haven't done it lately but have just gotten spoiled eating RB&R at a couple of places around time.
RB&R us a staple at our house. As far as I can tell, presoaking beans does nothing except reduce the cooking time by about half an hour. I always add at least 2 inches of water on top of the beans and find that usually enough water to cook the beans.
On thing that has always bugged me is the question of whether adding salt to beans early in the cooking process makes them tough. Many older folks swear salt toughens the beans but then they add salt pork or salty sausage to the pot with no regard for the salt in their seasoning meat. What do you think, Mr. Bear?
Looks good.
We use only cornmeal for our cornbread, and add an egg. Only buttermilk except when I sometimes add a splash of beer to thin it down. The skillet has to be sizzling hot before adding batter. Or the crust will stick. My grandmother only wiped out her cornbread pan - never washed it, so I expect she never has an issue with the cornbread sticking. I rinse and wipe it down with hot water - no soap. Works fine but you do still lose some of the seasoning.
We sometimes make fritters as well. They are especially good with a good jalapeno recipe. Be prepared to soak up a lot of oil though.
According to WebMD, soaking and rinsing dry beans reduces gas and makes them more digestible.
Smoking Andouille over Pecan is traditional. Pecan wood is almost indistinguishable from Hickory, but wind blown Pecan branches are easy to find under Pecan orchards.
Answering some questions here.
My cornbread recipe is what I call Depression Era Cornbread. It has no egg, because eggs were dear back in those times and used for things other than cornbread.
Use 1 cup cornmeal, 3/4 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt, and buttermilk to make the batter. No egg. Works great and makes authentic depression era cornbread. At our house, we use Martha White Self rising cornmeal and Martha White Self Rising Flour. It makes better cornbread, because it is Soft flour (Southern flour) milled from softer wheat that has less gluten.
Yes, the oil must be sizzling hot like shown in the photo, which helps keep the bread from sticking to the skillet. Also best if cooked at 400 degrees F.
My dad would say, cake has eggs and cornbread doesn't. I am unsure whether Irish Soda bread has an egg. Someone here will look it up for me and let all of us know
For a long time, I didn't add salt to my red beans, or great northern beans until the end of the cook. I no longer do that and can't really tell the difference.
The sausage in your red beans needs to be the brand and type you like. If you use something you don't like, you will likely notice it in the finished product.
Red Beans is a popular restaurant dish because they taste good are easy for the kitchen to make, and are a very cheap dish to put on the plate and sell for a premium price - allowing the restaurant to make more money than with some other dishes.
" If the liquid smoke bothers you, you can be happy knowing that the beans I cooked are all gone and no one asked you to eat any of them.
I bid you peace. "
Wow Mister Bear !
I'm a little surprised at your response to that poster's comment.
Never did I sense any criticism of your recipe. The poster was only expressing
a personal opinion about liquid smoke ... (and you gave the correct answer). Too much of that
stuff will indeed ruin anything.
However, your reply was very "snarky" and defensive.
That's what was surprising to many of us.
8:28 pm - Hard to please everyone. If I caused pain, I apologize. Was not intended to be snarky, just truthful.
Thanks,Mr. Bear, for another excellent recipe. Today is Monday, so I decided to cook a pot of beans. I followed your recipe exactly as you presented it and the beans and sausage were delicious.
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