re: Potential food board blasphemy: Red Beans and Rice is extremely overrated

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I'm not the one paying $10 for a mediocre dish that cost more to make in electricity usage than ingredients

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Holy shite! Stop the presses. Restaurants mark up dishes?!

I see places charge $6 for chips and salsa. Restaurants aren't soup kitchens.

You’re eating poor steaks.

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Jambalaya is the most overrated Louisiana food to me

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This would make a good thread.

I'd say ponce or etouffee. Or fricassee.

No, wait. Seafood gumbo. The one dish where the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Or the individual parts for that matter.

Since moving to BR 30 years ago, I agree, in BR red beans are pathetically underseasoned, my grade school cafeteria in Metairie made better RB. They mostly taste like Blue Runner straight from the can, add a piece of gummy French bread or sweet corn bread and you have complete MEH.

RB should be a smoky, garlicy, savory delight, and take that sweet, redneck cornbread and throw it in the trash.

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$9+tax at The Chimes

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And it comes with a big link of sausage and a roll.

We get that you don't like them, but presenting like a politician (half truths) doesn't add anything to your credibility.

A side of RB&R with sausage at Chimes is $4.

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and take that sweet, redneck cornbread and throw it in the trash.

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WTF???

I’m as redneck as any on this Board, and you simply can’t accurately pin that sweet bullshite on us. That is BS city folk cornbread.

I don't eat beans, so I agree.

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Jambalaya is the most overrated Louisiana food to me

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raw oysters

I'm a RBR addict. Can eat it 3X a week and it never gets old. Key is having a good smoked sausage to put in/pair with it and a good bread. I've been using Rabideauxs smoked andouille which is like pork crack.

Picked up some andouille from Jacobs yesterday just before they closed for weather. Can't wait to try it.

As for breads. Catheads, Mexican cornbread or good French bread all go well with it.

My way:

Red Beans & Rice

1 pound package Camellia Brand Red Kidney Beans (The brand I like best
2-3 smoked ham hocks
1 pound smoked pork country sausage (your brand), sliced (hot or mild - your choice)
8-10 cups water
1/4 stick of butter
1 cup chopped onions
3/4 cups chopped celery
3/4 cups chopped green (bell) pepper
2 Cloves garlic, chopped
1 bay leaf
Salt and Black pepper - to taste


Rinse beans well in cool water and inspect for stones and any bad beans. Cover beans plus one inch with slightly salted cool water in a bowl or boiler and soak overnight (at least 6 hours, longer if possible).

Next day, add smoked ham hocks to 4-6 cups water, with a little salt and bring to a low boil. Cook wit a cover for an hour and then remove the hocks to cool. When cool, pull meat from the hocks and set aside.

At this point, the water used to cook the hocks should be seasoned and a visible layer of fat should cover the top of the pot. You will cook your beans in this water.

In a sauté pan, cook your chopped onions, green pepper, celery and garlic in a couple of teaspoons of butter until tender. Add this to the hock water, then add the beans. If the water is not at least 2 inches above the top of the beans, add enough water to have it 2 inches above the beans. Add 3 teaspoons sugar to the water. Bring to a low/medium boil. Cook the beans open (without lid) for the first half hour minimum.

After the water comes to a boil, add the hock meat and bay leaf to the pot.

Cut the sausage into slices at a thickness you like. In the sauté pan used for the trinity, cook the sausage until the edges caramelize (light crust). Add these to the beans.

After an hour or so, you can lower the heat and cook with a lid if you like. Add water as needed to keep your beans from cooking dry. There will need to be enough water in the cooked beans to make the gravy, because RB need some bean gray. Cook the beans until they are tender and breaking apart. When you see tender beans, add four to six ice cubes. The shock of the ice will cause the skin to break on the beans and help them break apart.

Pull bay leaf before mashing/creaming the beans.

Use an immersion blender or potato masher, or fork to cream some of the beans to help make the bean gravy. Mash the beans to your preference. I like my beans cooked to a creamy state, and this takes longer than if you like nearly whole beans. Old beans take longer to cook than new year crop dried beans.

When the cooking is nearly finished, add 4 tablespoons of butter to the beans to thicken/tighten the sauce.

I am not opposed to carefully adding a few drops of liquid smoke at this point, if the beans are not smoky enough from the hock meat and sausage. Be careful with liquid smoke addition. You can easily overdo it. Go with the addition of only a drop or two at a time.

Serve with a scoop of rice in a shallow bowl and a slice of buttered cornbread or buttered French bread toast. Add chopped green onions as a garnish

I like to allow my guests to add hot sauce to their serving as they desire, since the level of preferred heat varies so much from person to person and there will be already be some heat in the beans from the sausage used.