The Cornbread Gospels (52 page)

3.
Add the dried chipotle, if using, the halved onion, and the whole garlic cloves. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to a simmer, and let the beans cook until they are very soft and starting to break open. This could be as little as 45 minutes to 1 hour for black-eyes if they’re this year’s crop, but for all others, allow 1½ to 2 hours. Taste a bean (blow first) to be sure it’s
nice and soft (you should be able to squash it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue).

4.
As the beans near tenderness, place the vegetable oil in a separate skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and sauté, stirring often, for about 8 minutes. Add the carrots and continue sautéing, stirring often, for another 3 to 4 minutes. Add the celery and bell pepper, if using, and sauté a few minutes longer. Finally, lower the heat, add the chopped garlic, and sauté 2 minutes more.

5.
Once the beans have softened, stir in the vegetable sauté, sesame oil, and miso. By this time the halved onion and the garlic will have more or less dissolved into the beans’ juice. Fish out the dried chipotle pieces (discard them, unless you want it so hot your hair will stand on end, in which case see the next step).

6.
If you feel your beans should be thicker (there are partisans of both soupy beans and thick beans as cornbread accompaniments), scoop out ¾ cup or so of the beans (with, if desired, the chipotle pieces, minus their tough stem). Mash them together, either by hand or by buzzing in a food processor. Stir this back into the pot, thickening the soupy beans nicely. If, on the other hand, your beans seem
too
thick, add a cup or two of vegetable stock or water. Add salt (beans need quite a bit) and pepper as needed.

7.
Continue to simmer the beans, covered, but on even lower heat, for another 15 minutes.

8.
Taste for seasonings again. Serve in a bowl, with the cornbread.

S
ERVES
6
TO
8

Almost as much a staple to Mexican cuisine as the corn tortilla are these simply cooked Frijoles de la Olla, or Beans in a Soup Pot, an
olla
being the clay pot traditionally used. These are “basic” because they are the beginning of countless rustic Mexican dishes, a few of which are listed in the variations.

Serve these frijoles with Corn Tortillas (
page 82
), Chou-Chou’s Original Dallas “Hot-Stuff” Cornbread (
page 69
), Jane’s Texas-via-Vermont Mexican Cornbread (
page 71
), Budin de Elote (
page 93
), or Humitas (
page 94
).

1 pound dried pinto or pink beans

2 large onions, 1 quartered, 1 finely chopped

1 to 1¾ teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil, bacon drippings, or lard

4 garlic cloves, chopped

Tortillas or cornbread, for serving

1.
Start the night before by picking over and rinsing the beans, then soaking them overnight in as much water as your biggest soaking-pot will hold.

2.
The next day, drain the beans and rinse them well. Transfer the beans to a large, heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid (a Dutch oven is ideal), and add fresh water to cover the beans by about 1½ inches. Add the quartered onion and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and let the beans cook until very soft and starting to break open. This could be as little as an hour, and you may need to add a little more boiling water if the level of liquid is getting low. Stir the beans occasionally. Taste
a bean (blow first) to be sure it’s nice and soft (you should be able to squash it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue). When it’s at this point, add the salt to taste.

3.
As the beans near tenderness, place the oil, drippings, or lard in a separate skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and sauté, stirring often, until slightly browned, about 6 minutes. Then, lower the heat, add the garlic, and sauté 2 minutes more. Stir the sauté into the salted, by-now-tender beans.

4.
You can eat the beans right away, with tortillas or the cornbread of your choice, or prepare them ahead of time, refrigerate them overnight, and reheat them (which makes them more flavorful). Or, use them for any of the following variations.

This is my favorite Mexican way with beans, either as is or used in any of the variations that follow. Simply pour 1 bottle (12 ounces) of Mexican beer, such as Tecate or Dos Equis, over the soaked and drained beans in step 2, and then add water to cover by 1½ inches. Continue as directed. Amazing how this small substitution deepens and enriches the beans’ flavors.

Refritos
means “well” fried, not “twice” fried, as you commonly hear it put in the U.S. Simply heat 3 or 4 tablespoons of the fat of your choice (choose the same as you did in the basic recipe) in a large, heavy skillet. Pour in 3 to 4 cups of the basic frijoles with their broth and raise the heat, stirring and mashing, either with the back of a spoon or with a potato masher. The object is to cook off most of the water, creating a nice, thick, texture-y purée, firm but moist; this will take 8 to 10 minutes.

Turn the oven to broil. Spread either the basic or refrito frijoles in a shallow, oiled baking dish, and top evenly with ½ to 1 cup (2 to 4 ounces) crumbled queso fresco, farmer’s cheese, feta, or ricotta salata. Place under the broiler until the cheese is slightly melty and lightly browned.

For these cowboy–style beans, heat a skillet and add 3 tablespoons of the fat of your choice. Add 6 ounces of Mexican chorizo (either traditional meat–style, or the soy type, like Soyrizo) and brown. Remove the browned chorizo from the pan with a slotted spoon or spatula, draining it on a paper towel or brown paper bag if very fatty. Add 1 large onion, finely chopped, and 1 to 2 fresh serrano chiles, finely chopped (with seeds for heat, without for mildness) to the fat remaining in the skillet and sauté until lightly browned, stirring often, 5 or 6 minutes. Add 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes, seeds and all, diced, and cook 2 or 3 minutes more. Stir this mixture into a Dutch oven containing 5 or 6 cups of Basic Frijoles. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to simmer, and cook, stirring often, until the bean broth has reduced down and the flavors are nicely commingled, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve in bowls with a dab of sour cream and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro, if you like.

S
ERVES
6
TO
8

These are a must with Classic Boston Brown Bread (
page 62
). I first published this recipe in
The Bean Book
in 1972, and I still get requests for it from people who remember it fondly but lost their copy of the book along the way. (If you are one of those people, not to worry: Not only is the recipe here again below, but I’ll be doing an updated reissue of my early leguminous tome one of these days.)

Vegetarians can omit the salt pork and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of butter or toasted sesame oil (plus a few cubes of firm tofu, for faux salt pork).

4 cups soldier beans, Maine yellow-eye beans, or white beans such as navy, Great Northern, or pea beans

Vegetable oil cooking spray

1 large onion, peeled and sliced

1 tablespoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra as needed

1½ teaspoons mustard powder

⅓ cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup dark (but not blackstrap) molasses

4 whole cloves

2 medium onions, unpeeled

¼ to ½ pound salt pork, rinsed, dried, and diced

Boiling water or bean stock, as needed

Classic Boston Brown Bread (
page 62
), for serving

1.
Start the night before by picking over and rinsing the beans, then soaking them overnight in as much water as your biggest soaking-pot will hold.

2.
The next day, drain the beans and rinse them well. Transfer the beans to a large, heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid (a Dutch oven is ideal), and add fresh water to cover the beans by about 1½ inches. Bring to a boil. Then lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and let the beans cook until almost but not quite tender, 45 minutes to 1¼ hours. (Check the beans and give them a stir every once in a while; you may need to add a little more boiling water if the level of liquid is getting low.)

3.
Remove the beans from the heat and let them cool. Preheat the oven to 250°F. Drain the beans,
reserving the bean liquid
(this is very important).

4.
Spray a deep, lidded casserole, preferably an old-fashioned glazed pottery baked-bean pot, with oil. Spread the sliced onion over the bottom of the casserole, and spoon the beans,
without their liquid, over the slices.

5.
Now, take a quart of the reserved bean liquid and whisk into it the salt, ½ teaspoon pepper (or more to taste), mustard powder, brown sugar, and molasses. Pour this mixture over the beans.

6.
Stick 2 cloves into each whole unpeeled onion, and bury both of these onions in the beans. Things are getting interesting now, aren’t they? Also, go ahead and bury the diced salt pork in the beans.

7.
Cover the pot, and bake the beans slowly for 7 to 8 hours, checking every so often and adding boiling water or bean stock as needed to keep the beans from drying out. During the last hour or so, uncover the beans so they have a chance to develop a nice crust. Remove the whole onions and serve with the Boston brown bread.

S
ERVES
6
TO
8,
WITH ACCOMPANIMENTS
(
CORNBREAD PLUS A SALAD OR SLAW
)

This fine, jazzed-up combination brings together New England–style baked beans with the Mexican touch of beer as part of the cooking liquid, making the beans
borracho
(“drunken”). The seasonings are also amped up: a deeply and interestingly tasty baked bean recipe, and vegetarian, too. Try this with Mary Baird’s Johnny Cake (
page 57
), Quasi-Colonial Cornbread (
page 44
), any of the Southwestern cornbreads, Dairy Hollow House Skillet-Sizzled Cornbread (
page 12
), or, of course, Classic Boston Brown Bread (
page 62
). Brattleboro Baked Beans Borracho are agreeable, as you can see.