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The Midniter
Jul 9, 2001

Crazyeyes posted:

Nearly every recipe I have seen here, while looking delicious, seems more oriented towards a side dish than main course. I love beans and want to know more. Please advise.

http://www.goonswithspoons.com/New_Orleans_style_Red_Beans_and_Rice


That is a stick-to-your-ribs main course.

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Senior Funkenstien
Apr 16, 2003
Dinosaur Gum

Get rid of the liquid smoke and put in a couple smoked ham hocks. Take them out at the end and shred what meat is on em and put it back in the pot.

Butch Cassidy
Jul 28, 2010

Senior Funkenstien posted:

Get rid of the liquid smoke and put in a couple smoked ham hocks. Take them out at the end and shred what meat is on em and put it back in the pot.

This guy knows what's up. Although the best option is to make them in a pot over a little campfire coalbed while drinking all day.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

Making this for lunch(es) next week. Looks glorious.

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!

Crazyeyes posted:

Nearly every recipe I have seen here, while looking delicious, seems more oriented towards a side dish than main course. I love beans and want to know more. Please advise.

Add cornbread -- voilą, instant main course.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

wormil posted:

Add cornbread -- voilą, instant main course.

I feel like if I add cornbread I have suddenly just made weird chili.


I think I need to lighten up if I'm gonna be getting down with the bean team.

wormil
Sep 12, 2002

Hulk will smoke you!
I would eat soup beans and cornbread as a last meal.

theres a will theres moe
Jan 10, 2007


Hair Elf
Start with a salad and serve your beans on a big flat soup bowl. Find a nice garnish like raw diced pepper or something. Just shootin' from the hip here.

angerbot
Mar 23, 2004

plob

Juice Box Hero posted:

I love my pressure cooker with all my heart and the only thing I regret about owning it is that I am not creative/motivated enough to find a use for it every day.

On top of that, it does amazing time warp poo poo to beans.

Get a pressure cooker but take your time, do your research, and wait for a sale.

http://www.hippressurecooking.com/ is pretty good for pressure cooking IMO

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.
Making the red beans and rice. Paranoid as hell I don't have enough liquid in there but gonna let it ride and pray.

SymmetryrtemmyS
Jul 13, 2013

I got super tired of seeing your avatar throwing those fuckin' glasses around in the astrology thread so I fixed it to a .jpg

Crazyeyes posted:

Nearly every recipe I have seen here, while looking delicious, seems more oriented towards a side dish than main course. I love beans and want to know more. Please advise.

I added some slices of squash and andouille to that Santa Maria beans recipe, thickened it with a little roux, added more stock, and made it a soup once. You can do something similar with a lot of these recipes, or serve them over rice/bread.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

SymmetryrtemmyS posted:

I added some slices of squash and andouille to that Santa Maria beans recipe, thickened it with a little roux, added more stock, and made it a soup once. You can do something similar with a lot of these recipes, or serve them over rice/bread.

I'll be putting it over rice, probably. Everything is better over rice.

SymmetryrtemmyS
Jul 13, 2013

I got super tired of seeing your avatar throwing those fuckin' glasses around in the astrology thread so I fixed it to a .jpg

Crazyeyes posted:

I'll be putting it over rice, probably. Everything is better over rice.

Beans and rice is a classic for a reason. Almost every recipe in this thread would be great with a bed of, or mixed with rice. That way it's a full meal, too - though I usually like a condiment of some sort (chutney, salsa, sour cream) and maybe a quick pickle on the side or something.

ibntumart
Mar 18, 2007

Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
College Slice

Crazyeyes posted:

Making the red beans and rice. Paranoid as hell I don't have enough liquid in there but gonna let it ride and pray.

If you're still looking for beans and rice ideas, Mexican rice (the nice and garlicky arroz blanco, not the tomato sauce-laden arroz rojo)and plantains is pretty delicious when you mix some black beans in. It's delicious without them as well, too, mind you. This recipe works well.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.
My beans were no joke. I threw in 4 ham-hocks for the smoke and shredded them near the end. The whole dish was incredibly flavorful and robust. Thanks for convincing me to give it a shot, folks.

Pile of Kittens
Apr 23, 2005

Why does everything STILL smell like pussy?

I currently have four servings of red beans and rice in the freezer because this thread reminded me of how amazing soul food is. I typically use no sausage and I add sage as well as thyme for a slightly more resinous flavor.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Crazyeyes posted:

Nearly every recipe I have seen here, while looking delicious, seems more oriented towards a side dish than main course. I love beans and want to know more. Please advise.

Do the mexican trick of eating beans with tortillas, the tortillas will fill you up.

Butch Cassidy
Jul 28, 2010

I've always had a soft spot for beans with baked potato for some reason.

And peas/lentils with steamed or roasted new potatoes.

But with tortillas, Boston brown bread, roti, rice, cornbread, whatever it's all good.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Crazyeyes posted:

My beans were no joke. I threw in 4 ham-hocks for the smoke and shredded them near the end. The whole dish was incredibly flavorful and robust. Thanks for convincing me to give it a shot, folks.

I'm jealous. For some reason, when I made that recipe, the beans just would not cook right. Thinking about it still makes me nauseous. The sausage I used was pretty bad too.

I asked in the General Questions thread, but does anyone have a recipe for the sweeter kind of baked beans? Boston baked beans are good, but I'm still trying to find a recipe like the one a local creole place has, and they were sweeter.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.
So I've tried making baked beans several times and the beans always come out hard and crunchy. What can affect beans cooking? These bastards sit on the heat for like 6 hours and they are the consistency of peanuts. I've tried a few different kinds of beans as well.

theres a will theres moe
Jan 10, 2007


Hair Elf

Crazyeyes posted:

So I've tried making baked beans several times and the beans always come out hard and crunchy. What can affect beans cooking? These bastards sit on the heat for like 6 hours and they are the consistency of peanuts. I've tried a few different kinds of beans as well.

Hmm I'm not an expert but immediate thoughts are:

Try pre-soaking overnight
Make sure there's enough liquid in the soak and the cooking pot
Cook them longer
Find a different bean source. Maybe they're super old.
Don't salt them until a couple hours in. This is wives-tale advice, though.

Eeyo
Aug 29, 2004

Are you adding in a bunch of stuff before cooking? Anything sour can significantly affect cooking time. I think molasses is acidic to some extent, and if there's any vinegar in the baked beans that could slow them down as well. Or were you trying to cook the beans first and then dress them with sauce and bake them?

Laminator
Jan 18, 2004

You up for some serious plastic surgery?

22 Eargesplitten posted:


I asked in the General Questions thread, but does anyone have a recipe for the sweeter kind of baked beans? Boston baked beans are good, but I'm still trying to find a recipe like the one a local creole place has, and they were sweeter.

Try Alton Brown's recipe, it's legit. You do have to cook the beans for like 8 hours or something. I don't remember how sweet they were, but you could always add more molasses or some honey if it's not to your tastes.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/the-once-and-future-beans-recipe.html

Butch Cassidy
Jul 28, 2010

Brown's recipe can readily halve the bacon to avoid being completely gratuitous.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Thanks, I think I'll make that later this week. I want to use some leftover pork shoulder, though. Would that work?

Eeyo
Aug 29, 2004

I'm guessing pork shoulder has less fat than the bacon. That said, pork and beans is a thing for a reason so just throw it in there with however much bacon/salt pork/whatever you'd like.

That said, pork shoulder would be very much at home in a cassoulet, which I know is not american baked beans, but is good nonetheless. However cassoulet sometime has sausage in it (watch this be the french version of beans in chili).

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.

Crazyeyes posted:

So I've tried making baked beans several times and the beans always come out hard and crunchy. What can affect beans cooking? These bastards sit on the heat for like 6 hours and they are the consistency of peanuts. I've tried a few different kinds of beans as well.

Soak overnight and then cook for 12 hours on a lower heat.

Thoht
Aug 3, 2006

Both sugar and acid will increase the amount of time it takes for legumes to soften. It's also why if you're trying to simmer something like apples for apple sauce, you add the sugar after they're soft because otherwise they'll take longer to break down. Conversely, adding sugar from the start helps them to maintain their structure if you're going for poached fruit or something like that.

You can get around this by seasoning at the end instead of at the beginning. Of course, the seasoning won't have penetrated throughout the beans at that point, so for optimal results you'd want to cool them in the liquid and rest overnight (which usually will noticeably improve any beans).

Thoht fucked around with this message at 02:10 on May 4, 2015

Butch Cassidy
Jul 28, 2010

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Thanks, I think I'll make that later this week. I want to use some leftover pork shoulder, though. Would that work?

Edible and likely tasty in its own right? Yup.

But the salt in saltpork/bacon is counted on to season baked beans while the fat and curing proceas adds tons of flavor and renders down to stay out of the way of the beans.

Pok shoulder would fall apart to shreds, altering the texture. And flavor would be much more mild even after you add more salt to compensate for the substitution.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Would ends and pieces work for this, if I decide that I want to use bacon? I mean, I figure I'm going to be chopping them up anyway.

Mr. Wiggles
Dec 1, 2003

We are all drinking from the highball glass of ideology.
When I buy bacon, I only buy ends and pieces. That's one of the reasons why.

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Crazyeyes posted:

So I've tried making baked beans several times and the beans always come out hard and crunchy. What can affect beans cooking? These bastards sit on the heat for like 6 hours and they are the consistency of peanuts. I've tried a few different kinds of beans as well.

You can just used canned/jarred beans if you want.

The Midniter
Jul 9, 2001

Number 1 Sexy Dad posted:

Don't salt them until a couple hours in. This is wives-tale advice, though.

That's definitely a myth. Always salt the beans.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Are bulk kidney beans something I should be able to find locally?

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Are bulk kidney beans something I should be able to find locally?

Find a market that Hispanics visit frequently and live near. Go there and they will likely have bulk dried kidney beans among other fantastic products.

22 Eargesplitten
Oct 10, 2010



Okay. That was my next step for trying locally, but I wasn't sure kidney beans were a Mexican food thing or if they would just have pinto and black.

General Emergency
Apr 2, 2009

Can we talk?
Where do you live? Eurogoon? USA? In Europe I've found the best place to get beans are immigrant run ethno shops.

Crazyeyes
Nov 5, 2009

If I were human, I believe my response would be: 'go to hell'.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Okay. That was my next step for trying locally, but I wasn't sure kidney beans were a Mexican food thing or if they would just have pinto and black.

Pretty much any ethnic market will have a wide variety of beans. Kidneys will be among them.

Nooner
Mar 26, 2011

AN A+ OPSTER (:
I like to mix in some lime juice and Knorr Caldo De Tomate with my beans and rice to give it that "latin" kick!

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killaer
Aug 4, 2007
Does anyone know any good recipes for Ful Medames? It's basically a middle eastern/mediterranean beans dish. This schwarma place next to me makes them so tasty - they come in this rich and creamy sauce - all I can tell is that there are some vegetables (onion/peppers), lots of oil, probably lots of butter, and some spices. It tastes loving delicious.

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