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Red beans and rice is a classic New Orleans dish, traditionally made on wash days (Mondays), where it could simmer all day as the chores were being done. Red kidney beans are slowly cooked into a creamy paste with plenty of pork to lubricate the lot. Typical Cajun seasonings give flavor, depth and spice to this lovely dish. While at Tulane in New Orleans, the Grub Blogger took a class on the literature of the Vietnam War with an adjunct professor. The class met every Wednesday evening, so he told us that instead of having our normal class the day after Mardi Gras, we were all invited to his (swank) place to chow down on red beans and rice and watch Apocalypse Now on his huge projection screen television. Read more…
Andouille, Beans, Cajun / Creole
I first came across feijoada at cooking school, assisting one of the chef-instructors with a Food of the World event at the Winter Garden in downtown Manhattan. I wasn’t involved in the cooking at all, just helping to serve it up at the fair under the (fake) palms trees. As with many of my introductions to great grub, I was not impresssed with the batch of black bean stew we were dishing out, but I could tell that there was something great behind the pedestrian attempt. Feijoada roughly tranlates as “bean stew”, and is the most famous dish from Brazil. This stew has a very high rating in the Porcine Revolution, using much of the pig to flavor and tenderize the simple black beans. This dish smells so good when it is cooking, you should make sure you have snacks around to munch on so you don’t slowly eat all the feijoada as it is being cooked. Read more…
Beans, Brazil, Porcine Revolution
For this porky treat I give thanks to the Home Sick Texan, whose great blog inspired my Yankee attempt at a Texas classic. The only experience I really had with refried was some sorry attempts at New York “Tex-Mex” joints, and some canned versions that I would heat up and eat with an egg. Once I made my own batch, I had the revelation I often have with food , where I see why people love a dish when it is done with care and thought. With fresh beans and attention to technique and ingredients, these beans had none of the pasty, almost chalky flavor I had associated with refried beans.
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Beans, Porcine Revolution, Refried Beans
For this example of porky love, I went to my favorite cooking resource, Cook’s Illustrated. I recommend that anyone interested in home cooking subscribe to their website at http://www.cooksillustrated.com/. The beans come out sweet and smoky, with a supporting pork flavor from the salt pork, and small bites of toothy pork from the bacon. This is an inexpensive, easy way to get the most out of white beans, which can be pretty bland. Although usually a side dishes, I will eat these on their own for a small, but very satisfying dinner. This will destroy the Pork ‘n Beans in your supermarket canned foods aisle. The beans absorb all the flavors as they slowly become tender, but the slow cooking keeps each bean pretty much intact, giving a nice layer of texture to the final dish.
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Bacon, Baked Beans, Beans, Porcine Revolution, Salt Pork
