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Prep Time: 0 Minutes Cook Time: 150 Minutes |
Ready In: 150 Minutes Servings: 6 |
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This comfort dish is a southern favorite that draws you into it with its smokey, salty flavors. It is almost too easy to just keep eating it. Ingredients:
2 onions -- diced |
1 green bell pepper -- seeded and diced |
1 stalk celery -- diced |
2 tablespoons bacon fat -- rendered |
1 pound dried red beans -- kidney |
2 smoked ham hocks |
3 bay leaves |
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper |
3 scallions -- chopped |
salt and pepper -- to taste |
tabasco sauce -- to taste |
basic louisiana white rice (3 cups) |
1 tablespoon chicken fat -- evoo or butter |
1 small onion -- minced |
1 1/2 cups long-grain rice |
3 cups chicken broth |
1 bay leaf |
2 pinches salt -- (1 to 2) |
Directions:
1. In a heavy soup pot, over medium-high heat, sweat the onions, bell pepper and celery in the rendered bacon fat. Once the onions become translucent, add the kidney beans, ham hocks, bay leaves and cayenne, and add water to cover by 2 inches. Increase the heat and bring the water to a boil. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and allow the beans to slowly simmer for 2 hours. Periodically stir the beans to make sure that they don't scorch on the bottom of the pot, and add water if necessary, always keeping the beans covered by an inch or move of water. Continue cooking the beans until they are creamy and beginning to fall apart when they're stirred. Remove the meat from the ham hocks, roughly chop it, and add it back to the pot of beans. Stir in the scallions, and season with salt, pepper and Tabasco. To serve, ladle beans over white rice.
2. Make the rice: In a medium sauce-pan over moderate hat, sweat the onion in the fat, oil or butter until translucent, about 5 minutes. Pour the rice into the pan and stir for 2 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring mixture to a boil. Add the bay leaf and salt. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 18 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, and serve.
3. Source: Chile Pepper Magazine, January 2010
4. NOTES : Adapted from John Besh's My New Orleans: The Cookbook. Time is the key to making successful red beans. They need to cook slowly and well. Using flavorful fat is another secret. Keep the fat when you fry bacon, roasted chicken drippings, etc. A little bit adds big flavor.
5. Art's Notes: I fried a half pound of bacon until brown, removed the bacon, and cooked the initial vegetables in the bacon fat. I added the bacon (crushed) back in at the end of the cooking processes. After removing the hocks, I added a little thickener and a tablespoon of ham seasonings.
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