Tallulah

I love to visit the States and one of the things I like best is the Southern food, particularly Red Beans & Rice, but I can't seem to find a recipe that really works for me. If anyone has one, I'd really appreciate it, as I imagine that it's a dish which is the subject of a lot of family recipes. And I'll be able to get nostalgic about my holidays there!

Thank you!

rjw_lgb_ca

I have managed to lose my mom's recipe for RB&R. I'm anxious to find it again, but the general concepts are easy, as best I recall them:

Soak one pound of red beans in water overnight. Toss out the water in the morning and use fresh water to cover beans (and extra, maybe a centimeter or more so the beans don't dry out as they cook). In a sauté pan, sweat one chopped onion, one chopped green pepper and two or three ribs of celery ("the Cajun trinity") and four or so cloves of garlic (I like garlic) in a little oil, along with a good-sized slab of salt pork or maybe a half-pound of bacon (as this gives off a LOT of grease, you'll need to pour off most of it before the next step). Add to the beans, then add seasonings (salt, pepper, cayenne, oregano, bay leaves, thyme, basil-- whatever aromatics you favor; stay away from exotics like tarragon or cilantro/coriander). Simmer until beans are tender. At least an hour before serving, mash a scant cup of beans to thicken the mixture, as well as adding a pound of smoked sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces.

Rice: For each cup of raw rice, start by setting two cups of water to boil, into which you have added a teaspoon of salt. Once the water is boiling, add the rice. Stir while the mix comes back to a bubble; once that happens, immediately drop the heat down to lowest point, cover and leave alone for TWENTY minutes. Take off heat, let alone a couple of minutes more, then uncover and stir to loosen it up. You should have perfect rice-- this is how Cajuns do it, according to my mom. OK, everyone does it this way. But she whispers voodoo spells over the pot (OK, she shouts "You better come out RIGHT this time, dammit!!")....

Someone should come along with actual measurements, but this is the gist of the recipe. Anyone else?

neworleanslady

I'm answering too many food questions this morning - I'm getting hungry!


CREOLE RED BEANS & RICE

This recipe has been selected as the Recipe of the Month for the month of January.

Compliments of Louisiana School of Cooking

I love you once, I love you twice, I love you more than red beans and rice!


Ingredients:
1 pound dried red beans
1 & 1/4 gallons of beef stock
1 pound smoked sausage
One 8-ounce can of diced Rotel tomatoes
2 cups chopped onions
3/4 cup chopped bell pepper
3/4 cup chopped celery
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped parsley
8 cups cooked rice


Directions:
1. Combine red beans and beef stock in 8-10 quart pot. Bring to a boil.
2. Slice smoked sausage. Heat skillet and brown sausage. Drain on paper towels. Add sausage to red beans.
3. Add remaining ingredients except the green onions and parsley. Reduce heat to medium and simmer beans for 2 & 1/2 hours. Make sure all of the water does not evaporate while simmering.
4. Add green onions and parsley. Serve over cooked rice.


Yields 8 servings.

Chef Patrick Mould
Louisiana Culinary Enterprises, Inc.
P.O. Box 81401
Lafayette, LA 70598
(337) 983-0896
www.louisianaschoolofcooking.com

gojacks

Red beans abd rice makes me fart!

Shane

I use the Red Beans and Rice recipe of the late Justin Wilson. You can purchase his cookbook via amazon.com or a used cookbook through alibris. It is the cookbook I use the most. My wife and I use at least twenty-five of Justin Wilson's recipes, among them pork, shrimp and chicken jambalayas, chicken creole, smothered chicken, maque chou, shrimp scampi, ropund steak etouffee..... hmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Tallulah

These are wonderful! Thank you so much! I shall spend this weekend filling the house with RB&R!

rjw_lgb_ca

neworleanslady: I like that recipe a lot. The Rotel tomatoes sound familiar, so I may have forgotten adding tomatoes in my recipe (I'm for adding fresh, ripe Romas or heirlooms with the Cajun trinity). The Worcestershire is a new one, however....

And gojacks, thank you for sharing that tidbit.

snowrooster

The first recipe posted is most similar to mine, though I like to cook it all day in a crock pot which seems to naturally break down some of the beans (so it thickens the gravy naturally without having to mash them up). I use a ham hock for flavor and andouille sausage for the meat (you remove the ham hock prior to serving). Neworleanslady, you give fabulous adivce which I truly appreciate, but I would never include tomatoes in Red Beans & Rice.

rjw_lgb_ca

snow: I've seen recipes for RB&R with and without tomatoes. I can see the benefits of adding them (a little sweet, a little acidic), but I think not adding them is fine as well. Now that we have good tomatoes back in the farmer's markets here in CA, I may have to experiment with adding super-ripe, fresh ones!

rjw_lgb_ca

snow: On this topic, do you use stock (as NOlady's recipe suggests), or just water? My mom is apt to use water and kick up the seasoning; it also gives more control over salt content (unless you make your own stock, the canned stuff is high in salt).

neworleanslady

Snowrooster,
I honestly can't vouch for this recipe. I HATE beans!! amp;
But, I love the other things I've tried from Chef Mould & the La School of Cooking so I thought it would be good, too. I've definitely seen it made with tomatoes though.
You know us down here - we add a little of this... a little of that...
I've never had a gumbo made exactly the same way twice, so I image everyone has their own RB&R recipe, too!

placeu2

I love this knid of thisn and want to try this recipe but I have a dumb Northerner grocery question:

What are red beans? Are they the same as kidney beans?

Thanks for understanding but if you want to make fun of me, that's OK too!

atilla

gojacks, you made me laugh right out loud!

neworleanslady

I "IMAGINE"... not "image"

No, not the same as kidney beans. It's ok... my mama's a Yankee. That's probably why I don't like RB&R - she didn't cook it!

Tiff

I love neworleanslady's little jingle, "I love you once, I love you twice..."
Alas, I may change my ending to "I love you more than curry chicken and rice"
(I'm with you nolady, loathe beans)

Thanks for making me smile.

Shane

If you buy the red beans dry in a package, I suggest soaking them in a large bowl overnight before cooking them. Red beans are good for you- fiber, fiber, fiber!

neworleanslady

MMMM! Curry chicken... now we're talkin'!

Off to lunch!

rjw_lgb_ca

To make some obvious clarifications to my half-a$$ recipe-- the celery and salt pork/bacon should be diced for the "sweat", of course. Adding a bay leaf or two seems to be non-standard, but I'm sure my mom does it ("Who got the bay leaf? It's good luck!") and it tastes good to me, so....

To keep this travel-related, did everyone know here that ALL beans can trace their origins to South America? A friend of mine wrote a really fun article for the LA Times detailing the history of the bean as well as her developing love for the homely stinker. I wish I could find a link....

Wayne

That's a good recipe neworleanslady offered -- thanks for it. It's pretty much the same as my mother used many years ago, and her mother before. We folks from Louisiana take a lot of pride in our red beans and rice.

One word of caution (or perhaps clarification)-- the recipe from neworleanslady will be pretty spicy. You can get different spiciness levels of the Ro-Tel tomatoes. The original is pretty hot, but now they make a version called "milder" on the front of the can. If you don't like a lot of spice, you might go easy on the hot sauce and use the "milder" Ro-Tel tomatoes until you see how hot it is. You can always add hot sauce to spice it up at the end of the cooking cycle. The most reliable hot sauce in my opinion is the famous Tabasco.

rjw_lgb_ca

And to extend the travel-related theme... I recall that my mom's recipe was adapted from a cookbook put together by a Ladies' Auxiliary or some such organization in Lake Charles, LA-- the western edge of Cajun Country. But Mom made changes to reflect how her Cajun mom cooked for her Creole Spanish dad-- in a little town an hour out of New Orleans, in the eastern part of Cajun Country. My aunt, a full-blood Cajun from around Thibodaux, cooks RB&R a little differently from my mom. So there's room for huge variation, some related to geography, some related to culture and history. So you see? This IS travel-related!