Red Beans & Rice
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Red Beans & Rice is a humble dish but also shows how you can take a few ingredients and come up with an amazing meal. Simply taking kidney beans and slowly simmering them, for hours with a couple of smoked ham hocks, to create amazing melding of flavors. At the end we take a small amount of the beans and mash them to create a creamy slurry that brings it all together. Enjoy this with a side of cornbread, Tabasco, and a nice IPA beer.
Smoked ham hocks are the traditional meat used though adding dice ham or smoked turkey legs adds a nice flavor as well.
Smoked ham hocks are the traditional meat used though adding dice ham or smoked turkey legs adds a nice flavor as well.
Ingredients
2 medium yellow onions, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 Tbsp. rendered bacon fat
1 lb. dried red kidney beans
2 smoked ham hocks
2 bay leaves
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
4 green onions, finely chopped
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Tabasco
3 cups cooked white rice
Instructions
Pre-soak the kidney beans. Following the package instructions this can be done by soaking the beans in water overnight or bring the beans to a boil and then remove from the and cover for 1 hour. Drain the beans.
In a Dutch oven, saute the onions, bell peppers and celery with the rendered bacon fat. Approximately 7 - 10 minutes.
Once the onions have become translucent, add the kidney beans, ham hocks, bay leaves and cayenne pepper.
Cover the beans with water by 1".
Increase the heat to bring to a boil.
Once to a boil, reduce the heat to low and allow the beans to simmer for 2 hours. Periodically stir the beans to make sure they don't scorch on the bottoms. Add water as needed.
Continue cooking the beans until they begin to fall apart.
Remove ½ cup of beans into a bowl and mash. Add the mashed beans back into the Dutch oven.
Remove the ham hocks and allow to cool while allowing the beans to continue to simmer.
Once cooled, remove the meat from the ham hocks, rough chop and add back to the beans.
Add the green onions, season with salt, pepper and a couple of dashes of Tabasco.
Serve over rice.
Tags
Main
