Does anyone have a favourite recipe for refried beans they'd be OK with sharing, possibly with a short note about what sets it apart? I've got a pretty good basic one worked out but I'm looking to elevate my game from just "tastes pretty good" to "kick down a bank vault door to get some".
food, long
It's refried pinto beans time. This isn't perfect yet but I'm real happy with it so far.
In the morning, chuck into the slow cooker:
- 450g dried (rinsed) pinto beans
- 1tsp red pepper flakes
- 1tsp salt
- 7.5c water
In the evening:
- 1 sweet medium onion
- 3 jalapeños
- 2 shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 5 limes (not 2)
- 1tsp cumin
- 1tsp chili powder
- salt, pepper
Finely dice the veggies, then cook aliums until starting to brown. Add cumin, chili powder, jalapeños. Fry down.
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food, long
You want to add the spices after the onion, shallots, and garlic have visibly browned because after the chili powder and cumin are in there everything will look brown anyhow. Once the spices have bloomed a bit, add the jalapeños; cook until fragrant.
Then add
THE BEANS
I used a slotted spoon to more easily control the bean to liquid ratio, then used a thick wire potato masher to get some of those starches out and cooking down; then I added a couple of ladles of the bean liquid.
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food, long
Oh right, the cilantro. Did I fail to mention that earlier? We're going to need a lot of cilantro. Rinse it well, dry it off, chop off the bulk of the stems, chop it well, then mix it in with the beans.
Add salt and pepper to suit your taste as you go. Stir constantly: nothing must stick and burn at the bottom. Add a ladle of bean liquid at a time until it's all in.
After the first two additions, add your lime juice too, and taste. I needed three more, for a total of five!
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I am making more unnecessarily complicated beans and this may be my best batch yet
Same recipe as upthread only I doubled the jalapeños and swapped out the pinto beans for black beans. (I'm still on the slow cooker method despite convincing advice to switch over to the pressure cooker because I want to finish developing this recipe fully before moving on to an entirely different method, since that usually involves a bunch of secondary adaptations.)
...and then the long, slow cook, constantly stirred, with the gradual addition of all the lime juice and bean cooking liquid. The cilantro goes in near the end so it can contribute its aromatics without them being fully cooked off.
Finally, the result! Foolish me, I should have held back a little fresh cilantro to join the feta as garnish; but nevertheless I'm delighted with the results here. Can't wait to have some with breakfast tomorrow.
...I just posted this whole thread from the wrong account which means it didn't have any "food" content warnings.
I'm sorry. ):
I adjusted the recipe this round in a couple of small ways:
- increased the jalapeño count to a full six
- dropped the salt by about 20%, and replaced half the table salt with MSG
- added a teaspoon of Mexican oregano (I still can't find epazote in this city, argh!)
- used about 75-100g of feta this time - no oaxaca cheese around
- accidentally cooked the beans for a full 36 hours (that wasn't on purpose, I just discovered far too late that the cilantro we had in the fridge had gone off and then had to wait another day for the shops to open). This didn't harm them! Probably a waste of energy though, I don't think it improved anything either.
- left out the shallots and added a bit more garlic to compensate. (Again, just ran short of them.)
Fried down the onions and jalapeños in some olive oil, then once they were nicely dark golden I tipped in the garlic and brought it to just a slightly lighter brown before adding the spices.
After they had a chance to bloom for 30-60 seconds or so I added the beans plus a ladle or so of the cooking water and mashed it down. Then I cooked it slowly, stirring constantly, for about 90 minutes; adding a ladle of bean cooking water and a glug of lime juice until it was all mixed in. Then I folded in the feta and the cilantro, cut the heat, and let their flavours blend in as it all cooled and thickened up to the final target consistent.
The yield was pretty generous! This ought to be a good week and a half to two weeks of meal additions.
This is by a good length my tastiest batch. I'm keen to try this with black beans next!
Then it'll be time to make good on my intent and commitment to follow @federicomena 's good advice to use a pressure cooker, and after that I'm going to experiment with Goya sazon (both the stuff from the packet and my own blend of it!)
auto cw: could contain food
@gnomon that looks delicious and Extremely Powerful!
(Yesterday I had beans for breakfast and falafel for lunch... it was a long and smelly night)