Red Beans, My Way
A superb dish. This recipe is good if you are using older beans, both the marrow from the bones and the dissolved collagen helps thicken your sauce. The smoked ham also adds a flavor that is rich and complex...a flavor that you just won't get out of a bottle of liquid smoke.
A superb dish. This recipe is good if you are using older beans, both the marrow from the bones and the dissolved collagen helps thicken your sauce. The smoked ham also adds a flavor that is rich and complex...a flavor that you just won't get out of a bottle of liquid smoke.
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- kosher salt to taste
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 large yellow onion
- 1 lb. red kidney beans (i use camellia brand beans)
- 2 quarts ham stock (see below)
- 1 large bell pepper seeded and diced
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme)
- 1 tablespoon black pepper freshly ground
- 1 tablespoon creole seasoning or to taste
- 1 teaspoon worchestershire sauce
- hot pepper sauce (crystal is best), to taste
- -- ham stock --
- 4 quarts cold water
- 2 pounds smoked ham hocks or shanks (hocks have more fat & flavor, shanks have more meat)
- 1 large onion cut up
- 1 large bell pepper cut up
- 3 stalks celery cut up
- small handful black peppercorns
- Carbohydrate 40.0762426399777 g
- Cholesterol 32.8533333333333 mg
- Fat 4.4885489583881 g
- Fiber 8.21312093273615 g
- Protein 34.935005625184 g
- Saturated Fat 1.9764117083498 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (519g)
- Sodium 1426.58811805629 mg
- Sugar 31.8631217072415 g
- Trans Fat 0 g
- Calories 333 calories
Step-by-step
- To make the Ham Stock:
- Place all your ingredients in a large stock pot and pour your water over everything.
- Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 3 hours.
- Occasionally skim the fat and protein scum off the top.
- After 3 hours pour through a fine sieve into a large pot and skim off the excess fat.
- Reserve the liquid and pick through the ham bones for any meat youd like to reserve, you may toss the rest.
- You may use this immediately for your red beans or refrigerate it for later use.
- Refrigerating the stock will also allow you to get any extra fat you may have missed by skimming.
- To make the Red Beans:
- Soak beans overnight in a large pot and use enough water to ensure the beans remain covered in water.
- Rinse beans and pick through them for rocks and dirt.
- Put beans back into pot along with ham stock.
- Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
- Continue to simmer for one hour.
- After the beans have simmered for one hour, add vegetables, ham (picked from the ham shanks you can throw the bones in there, too.
- Just be sure to pick them out when the beans are done.), bay leaves, and seasonings.
- Bring back up to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
- Simmer for 2 more hours or until beans have become tender and made their own thick sauce.
- Stir occasionally to prevent bottom from scorching.
- Adjust seasoning as you go.
- You may need to smash about a cup of the beans along the side of the pot and stir that in to make a thicker sauce, sometimes if the beans are not so fresh they wont cream up as well thats why you need to get Camellia beans, if you can find them.
- Serve over hot white rice, use at least one cup cooked rice per serving.
Are they tender yet, or do they still offer chalky resistance against the teeth? Halfway through the simmer, that question dictates every adjustment a cook makes to a pot of legumes. Achieving the right consistency relies entirely on starch release and collagen breakdown rather than strict adherence to a timer. Older legumes demand patience, often requiring an extra hour of simmering to yield the starches necessary for a natural gravy.
Judging Doneness Without a Thermometer
Visual and tactile cues remain the only reliable metrics for bean doneness. Press a single bean against the side of the pot using the back of a wooden spoon; it should yield instantly to gentle pressure without gritty resistance in the center. Liquid viscosity offers the secondary clue. As starches gelatinize and combine with rendered bone marrow from the shanks, the cooking liquid transforms from a watery broth into a glossy, clinging emulsion that coats the spoon. Smashing roughly one cup of the softened legumes directly against the interior pot wall accelerates this thickening process by releasing trapped starches back into the surrounding liquid.
- Stir every fifteen minutes during the final hour of simmering to prevent dense starches from scorching at the base of the vessel.
- Refrigerating the extracted ham stock overnight solidifies excess surface fat, allowing for clean removal before the legumes join the pot.
- Maintain a gentle bubble rather than a rolling boil to keep the skins intact while the interiors soften.
