Thursday I had lunch from The Two Bells Tavern in Seattle. They don’t serve deep-fried food. Instead, your side-dishes include potato salad, potato chips (Yes, I know. But they don’t fry them.), coleslaw, soup or baked beans. Thursday I had the beans.
The beans were good, with obvious bacon in. They also had a bit of a Southern-style ‘kick’ to them. It got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing): I have a crock pot. I make beans in the crock pot. But I’ve never made baked beans. So, if you would be so kind, please post your best baked beans recipes for:
[ul][li]New England-style baked beans;[/li][li]Southern-style baked beans;[/li][li]English-style baked beans[/ul][/li]I can be a bit of a traditionalist, so I’ll ask for recipes that do not use beef. I’m thinking salt pork, bacon, or vegetarian. I know that ‘baked beans’ and ‘barbecue beans’ can overlap somewhat. For this thread I’d like to tend toward the ‘baked beans’ side of things.
I have some Great Northern white beans in the cupboard, as well as tomato paste, garlic, onions, brown sugar, and bacon. I can get other stuff as needed.
Boston Baked Beans
2 lbs. dried white pea beans, rinsed
1 tsp. baking soda
1 lb. salt pork, diced into 1" cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
Soak beans overnight. In morning, add baking soda to beans and parboil for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°. Drain and rinse beans. In bottom of oven-proof beanpot, place the onion and 1/2 of the salt pork. Add beans to pot. Top with remaining salt pork. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Add hot water to cover. Bake for 6-7 hours.
Here’s my recipe, very similar to Silenus’…this is the recipe we used for Boy Scout Baked Bean Suppers back in the 60’s and 70’s. So good.
Boy Scout Baked Beans
1 lb. navy beans
1/4 lb salt pork
1/2 T salt
1 small onion
1/4 c unsulphered molasses
1/4 c dark brown sugar
1/4 t. dry mustard.
Soak the beans overnight in enough water to more than cover.
Parboil 10 minutes or until skins pop with 1/2 t baking soda.
Rinse in cold water.
Mix all ingredients together and bake at 300’ or less for 3-6 hours, adding hot water as needed. Uncover the last 1/2 hour to brown if necessary.
I use a wonderful old brown bean pot, but any deep casserole dish would do.
The most important part is to make sure you add water while they bake…the liquidy part should be right up to the top of the beans until that last half hour.
I thought for sure silenus’ recipe would have Bourbon in it. I’ve really enjoyed the baked bean recipes I’ve tried using it. One of my favourites is made with coffee and bourbon and is surprisingly good, unfortunately I don’t have it handy at the moment.
Johnny, you may want to give Alton Brown’s a whirl. He did a *Good Eats *episode on baked beans, which can be found here. They have a bit of jalapeno in them.
I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if you couldn’t trace all baked beans recipes back to the New England Puritans. I think the reason they came into existence had to do with wives avoiding work on the Lord’s Day.
ETA: Bust out your dutch oven. You’ll need to saute some ingredients, if I remember correctly.
Labradoe Deceiver: That recipe does look good. Only I don’t have a dutch oven. I want one with the lipped top so that I can use coals on it outside, and I also want the lid with the projections on the inside (‘self-basting’ lid). I haven’t been able to find one like that.
HongKongFooey (Number One Superguy!): I’m intrigued by the bourbon. Tell me more when you can!
Used to have one just like it. I’ll see if I can pull it out of storage. If so, it’s yours.
It may have legs, though. That’s one of the big problems with the outdoor type, they often have legs. If I can’t find mine, I’d just go ahead and buy the indoor Lodge model, then see if you can find a lid to fit for outdoor occasions.
Cut the amount of sugar in half. Add a 1/4 cup bourbon to the ingredients. The recipe I gave was a very basic one, since you hadn’t made them before. You can spice them up by adding some finely diced peppers. You can sweeten them up by adding diced apples about halfway through cooking.
That’s very generous, Labrador Deceiver. Many thanks for the offer, and many more if you find it.
I looked at the Lodgewebsite, and I see that they sell self-basting lids. But the camp Dutch ovens mention that their lids can be used as griddles, so I’m guessing a self-basting lid is not included. It’s not clear to me if the in-the-oven Dutch ovens come with self-basting lids or not. It sounds like I might have to get an in-the-oven Dutch oven and a separate camp Dutch oven if I want to use the coals.
I’ve seen several models that have the lid/griddle option that would work for you. The reason being that the top of the lid sometimes has 3 legs and some etching that would do the self-basting job for you. It would be quite as even as the models which have several more bumps, but it would work just fine.
Thanks for the suggestions. It occurred to me that unlike the more civilised California, one cannot buy bourbon at the grocery store. Up here spirits are only sold at state liquor stores, and I don’t know if they’re open Sundays. So I’ll have to try it without the sauce.
