Red beans and water

[bobmac]

Anybody familiar with Paul Prudhomme's red beans and rice recipe? Calls for a lot of water, and even though I left three cups out, I still have a lot of liquid. It's unclear whether the top stays on the pan in the simmer stage, which, of course, would make a difference.

[John DePaula]

I usually cook red beans with the lid slightly ajar. Keep an eye on it and if you still have too much water with 1 hour to 45 minutes left in cooking, just take the lid off.

Now, here's the good part: if you still have too much liquid when the beans are done, you can mash some of the beans against the side of the pot and it will thicken up nicely and become creamy! Yumm!

Hope this helps.

[jack daniels]

The reason that the recipe calls for so much water is because red beans are supposed to slowly simmer on the stove all day.

It is traditional in New Orleans to serve red beans and rice on Mondays. Monday was the designated laundry day, and red beans could simmer all day on the stove and not take that much prep time.

[fifi]

There are also two schools of thought on red beans, Thick and "stand-up" style that stands up on the rice, and a thinner style with more juice to seep down into the rice. I like them somewhere in between. You also need to have the right bean. For traditional south Louisiana red beans, you need Camellia brand. Yes, they are red kidneys but they are different. There are as many ways to season and cook red beans as there are cooks in Louisiana. Over in the now infamous Dried Beans topic, we settled on an abbreviated way to cook beans that came from Russ Parsons. I have done red beans many times using this method and it never fails to produce the same as I have simmering for hours.

• Wash one pound of beans.
  
• In a heavy pot with a lid, I use my Le Creuset, saute your seasonings (onion, garlic, trinity, whatever) in some sort of fat. I like bacon fat or lard. Or maybe fry off some smoked sausage, andouille or kielbasa, and use the fat from that to saute the vegetables. Some kind of pork product is traditional or you can leave the meat out altogether.
  
• Add 5 cups of water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil.
  
• Put the lid on and put into a 250F oven.
  
• At about 2 hours, check the beans. If they are almost done, mash as many as you like to thicken the liquid.
  
• Return to the oven and cook for about a half hour more.
  
• Done.
  

This works every time.

[Mayhaw Man]

Anybody familiar with Paul Prudhomme's red beans and rice recipe? Calls for a lot of water, and even though I left three cups out, I still have a lot of liquid. It's unclear whether the top stays on the pan in the simmer stage, which, of course, would make a difference.

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Proving once again that this is a place where most of the time you can go right to the top and ask:

It so happens that I am going to K-Paul's for a photo shoot for something I recently wrote about PP and I will ask him for you on Sat. afternoon. I just looked at the recipe and it all seemed roughly in proportion with what I use, though not exactly-although it's hard to be sure because as with most things that I have been cooking since I was a kid, well, I don't measure anything. It's all about the look, the taste, and the smell.

My friend Pableaux Johnson does something that I don't think I have ever heard of with his beans. About the time his beans are starting to soften, he adds a pint or so of his last batch (thawed from the freezer, usually). It's kind of like using a sourdough starter, in a weird way. I don't know if it has any effect or not (I doubt it, but it makes for a great conversation starter-and I do live in a place where 6 people are more than happy to stand around a stove with a pot of beans on it and discuss the process and especially the results ), but he makes the best beans I have ever eaten. Had 'em last Monday night, as a matter of fact. Tasty beans, those.

Edited to say that if you aren't using Camellia Brand Red Beans, well, you're just using beans. (Schweggman's used to be Camellia's as well, but Schweggmans has now gone the way of McKenzie's, K&B, and Maison Blanche. Dey ain't dere no mo)

[Mayhaw Man]

This space for rent.

[John DePaula]

Edited to say that if you aren't using Camellia Brand Red Beans, well, you're just using beans. (Schweggman's used to be Camellia's as well, but Schweggmans has now gone the way of McKenzie's, K&B, and Maison Blanche. Dey ain't dere no mo)

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I second the comments about Camellia Beans: they're fantastic.

Interesting about the "Red-Bean Starter." Need to think about that a bit…

Thanks, Mayhaw man.

[fifi]

Come to think of it, my Gumbo Goddess used to save a cup of beans from week to week as well. She made them every Monday and she had this odd little porcelain "pot" with a lid. A cup of beans went in there and straight into the fridge for the next week's pot. She told me that you dip out just beans into the "saving dish" since you might change the meat from week to week.

I had forgotten all about that. She made a mean pot of beans, too. Thanks for the memory.

Another thing I just remembered . . . Her favorite seasoning meat was "sweet pickled pork." I haven't seen that stuff in years.

[bobmac]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm familiar with the concept of long, slow cooking, but K. Paul calls for only a couple of hours.

[fifi]

Well, the "Parsons Method" that I posted above only takes about 2 1/2 hours. I don't know about PP's method but the oven thing sounds close, for time anyway. At this point, that is the only technique I know of that could make great red beans in a short time, bag to bowl.