Red Beans and Rice

New Orleans-style “Monday food.”

Hardware

• Large sauteuse pan
• Large soup pot

Ingredients

500	grams		small red beans (dried)
175	grams		thick-cut bacon, chopped
500	grams		andouille sausage
400	grams		yellow onion, chopped small
275	grams		celery, chopped small
4	cloves		garlic, minced
3			bay leaves
4	sprigs		fresh thyme
1	tsp		ground sage
1,500	ml		vegetable stock
			salt
			black pepper
			rice, white or brown

Procedure

1. The night before, soak the beans in 3 times their volume of salted water; use 7 grams of salt per liter of water. [Note: This is 50% less salt than normal, but the bacon and sausage are salty, and the usual 15 grams/liter is too much.]


2. Drain the beans and briefly rinse them; put them in the soup pot. Add the thyme sprigs and the sage, and the bay leaves.


3. In the sauteuse pan, cook the bacon until crispy. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to the soup pot. Reserve the bacon fat.


4. Cut the sausage into short logs, then split each log lengthwise.


5. Without wiping out the sauteuse pan, cook the sausage, cut side down, until it takes on some color. Remove to a plate and let cool a little bit.


6. Deglaze the sauteuse pan using a little stock or water; pour the water and the fond into the soup pot.


7. Using the bacon fat (and, if necessary, some vegetable oil), saute the celery over a medium heat.


8. When the celery has cooked a bit, add the onions; if needed, add more oil. Saute until the mixture is just getting brown around the edges.


9. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute.


10. While the vegetables are cooking, cut the sausage into half moons; add to the soup pot.


11. Dump the vegetables into the soup pot and if necessary, deglaze the sauteuse pan again.


12. Cover the contents of the soup pot with enough stock to cover by about 5 cm. Cover the pot and bring just to a boil, then reduce to a slow simmer and cook until the beans are just soft – about 1½ to 2 hours.


13. Cook the rice.


14. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs.


15. Remove the cover, bring the mixture to a medium-fast simmer, and cook until the mixture is pleasantly creamy.


16. Add salt and pepper to taste.


17. Serve the rice and beans together.

Notes

If you don’t like spicy stuff, substitute kielbasa for the andouille sausage.

The original recipe called for green bell peppers. Yuck.

If you don’t have vegetable stock you can use water; you could also use chicken stock but that’s likely to make the dish too rich.

If, during the final simmering, too many beans are starting to disintegrate, use a “spider strainer” to remove some or most of the beans and sausage. When the desired consistency is reached, add the reserved sausage and beans back to the mixture.

When serving, I like about 3 times as much beans as rice.

For those of you who are metrically impaired, 1,500 ml is a little less than 7 cups, 500 grams is just over 1 pound, and 5 cm is about 2 inches.

Rating

Difficulty:		Very easy
Time:		3 hours, plus soaking the beans overnight
Precision:		2

Source

Adapted from New Orleans-Style Red Beans and Rice, by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.