And in my book, “from scratch” means starting with dry, unseasoned beans and no prepackaged spice blends.
I’ve never been able to make a really exceptional batch of baked beans. At least nothing that beats my standard recipe of one 55 ounce can of Bush’s Best baked beans, one can Rotel tomatoes, one pound kielbasa (sliced thin), one onion and one or two bell peppers (coarsely chopped). Cook all this in a slow cooker for 2-3 hours then refrigerate overnight. Reheat the next day. Beans, much like chili and beef stew, are better the nest day, IMHO.
So, do you have a good baked bean recipe you’re willing to share?
ps. The two quickest ways to ruin a good pot of beans is to serve them too watery so they run all over the plate or to have the almost candy-sweet recipes that call for as much brown sugar as beans.
No recipe, but try this seasoning hint: add a tablespoon of instant coffee to the ingredients (or perhaps some brewed coffee, but NOT regular coffee grounds). Gives a nice, smokey flavor that people can’t identify.
1 lb. dry Great Northern beans
1/2 lb bacon or thinly sliced salt pork
1 large onion, sliced thin
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup molasses
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Rinse and soak beans. Salt and boil until done. Drain, reserving liquid. Add brown sugar, mustard and molasses. Mix. Fill bean pot with alternating layers of pork, beans, onion and liquid, trying to finish with pork as the top layer. Cover pot and bake at 300º for 5 hours or so. Add liquid as needed as baking.
I’ll have to try this. Though it’s pretty close to how I’ve done them a few times, and like Alpha Twit, mine never come out quite as good as the canned ones. They smell a hell of a lot better when cooking though, which has impressed a few guests who didn’t have time to stay for dinner :D.
Other “adds a little unidentifiable something” ingredients are espresso powder and unsweetened cocoa or bakers chocolate. Add only a small amount so it underlines the flavor rather than being recognizable as chocolatey baked beans (ick!).
Also, some types of tea have a very smokey flavor so you can throw in a couple of tea bags while cooking then pull them out before serving. They are: lapsang souchong, russian caravan, and scottish breakfast.
Silenus, a question about your recipe. Which type of molasses do you use? The flavors vary and blackstrap’s very strong flavor will give a different result from simple dark molasses.
Basic Grandma’s Dark Unsulphured molasses. Sorry for any confusion, but if I’d meant blackstrap, I would have said so. That stuff is potent!
And I modify the snot out of the basic recipe all the time. Usually to add things like pepper flakes, more onion, more bacon, more onion, maybe back off the molasses a bit and substitute maple syrup…things like that.
Johnny, thanks for the review! The base recipe is one that I got from an Alaska State trooper about 30 years ago.
M<any thanks for the replies. I’ve got two pounds of beans soaking for a double batch of silenus’ recipe. I do have one question about it though.
How much is needed? I’m guessing that I want to almost, but not quite cover the tops of the beans. Is that too much liquid? Too little?
I never would have thought of adding instant coffee to beans but I do remember my dad adding a square of baker’s chocolate when he made a big pot of beans. One other thing he often did was to add about a teaspoon of good bourbon to his bowl right before eating. I’ll have to try those modifications.
Why soak and boil beans first? Why not just let beans soak in the ingredients as they cook (I’m thinking about a crock pot recipe here)? Wouldn’t that infuse the beans with more flavor than just water, and avoid cooking them to mush?
I’ve found that crock-pots, or at least the ones I’ve owned, just don’t get hot enough to get the beans done the way I like them. This recipe works, so I don’t futz around with it too much. If you have a hot crock, then try it and see. I’d like to hear the results.
That’s my experience, too. I’ve never gotten beans totally soft in a crock pot, and I’ve done them many times for 12+ hours after soaking them overnight.
In most bean recipes, the primary reason for pre-soaking the beans is to make them a bit less flautogenic. If that’s not a concern for you, feel free to skip that step.
Beans don’t soften if cooked in acidic liquid. My father found this out the hard way by adding some, I think, stewed tomatoes to the bean pot. Hours and hours of simmering later he still had tomato-flavored pebbles. Salt also inhibits softening of the beans. This is why it’s a good idea to cook the beans first, then add seasonings.
That is one of the effects, but I wouldn’t call it the primary reason for soaking. It’s mostly so they cook faster, especially for those of us who soak and save the soaking liquid for cooking (and thus include all the gas-causing stuff that’s leached out through soaking.)
As for baked beans recipe, the only difference between my recipe and silenus’s is I add a good 1/2 cup or so of ketchup to the beans, along with some cider vinegar to taste.
I usually don’t have molasses around, so I make up for it with dark brown sugar.
This turns out not to be the case. I always thought so too, but Cook’s Illustrated did a few tests, and it seems that you are supposed to salt the beans **at the start **of the cooking, not the end. It has lots to do with the flavor and nothing to do with the softness.
