Red beans question.

Thanks

The way I do it is to soak the beans overnight in a brine - 3 Tbsp to a gallon of water. Soaking the beans in a brine make the skins cook as fast as the insides of the beans. You will minimize blown out skins. The texture of the beans done this way is nice and soft.

I usually throw everything in at the start, except for the sausage and ham hocks. Sausage cooked for 2 or 3 hours is not appetizing and, if you cook hocks too long you'll have little bones that can break a tooth hiding in your red beans.

This is from my own experiment:

Red Beans Recipe and Yields

Soak:
1 lb beans
8 cups water
1 1/2 Tbs salt

After Soak you'll have:
5 cups water (discard)
6 cups soaked beans

To cook
6 cups soaked beans, rinsed well and drained
8 cups water (will cover beans by about 1 inch depending on your pot)
3/4 lbs sausage, sliced

Yield:
8 cups red beans, including 3/4 lbs sausage

Rice for 1 lb beans:
2 cups raw or 6 cups cooked

To serve
Use 1/2 cup rice for 3/4 cup red beans

I don’t know if you have a pressure cooker but I did these beans in an instant pot in an hour, no over night bean soak. Close to Rats recipe using both a smoke ham hock and smoked sausage few weeks ago.

Edit I use pre cut seasoning from rouses , trinity with garlic

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Solid rationale. I'm going to try that out next time.


Ditto, thanks for the tip Rat

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I got that tip from America's Test Kitchen. Tried it and it works.

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America's Test Kitchen

Awesome program but just not the same w/o CK. Milk Street doesn't do it for me and is a bit bland...

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I agree entirely. CK was aggravating at times with his Yankee-centric thinking and disdain for spicy food but neither of the shows are as interesting now. Bridgett and Julia don't have chemistry together and they try too hard with their female style humor. (Not anti woman, it's just that's not my type of humor.) Milk Street is cooking food I don't really care about.

I seldom cook red beans preferring pinto beans. Every year we cook a big holiday ham. Last year with no company we had lots left over I took it off the bone cubed it and amde sure some rind and fat got in each qt freezer bag man did that make good bean meat.

I usually add a can of blue runner red beans to help make them a little thicker. Nothing worse than watery red beans.

My buddy's mom is from thailand and he's always giving me crushed thai peppers she makes. I always add a couple pinches of them to really give it some head and flavor.

Followup... the beans came out fricking awesome. My fiancee is impressed... don't worry I gave y'all credit for the help.