Smoky red beans and rice

(Pictured: early girl tomatos, smoked Creole sausage from Ditmers, spices, green zebras, Ridge 2005 Carignane, which had a marvelous raspberry note in a smooth refined body, garlic, hot peppers, a Wusthof paring knife, some left over Tourist wurst, yellow onion whole and chopped.)

Let me admit this recipe, OK, multi-year obsession, started because of Popeye's Red Beans and Rice. Yes, Popeye's, the fried chicken chain that serves southern fast food. Greasy, not so healthy fast food. Comes to the restaurant in a mix in a box or a bag, so the staff can make it on the spot, fast food. But tasty, tasty, the best darn chicken and red-beans-n-rice fast food.

This recipe is really an odyssey, capturing a non-negligible(*) fraction of my cooking knowledge and time. It represents a pursuit of the unattainable, unless you have the $2.50 to actually order their red beans and rice, assuming you can find a Popeye's. (* Non-negligible is one of those precisely vague words scientists use to to mean some amount that cannot be ignored, but otherwise cannot be quantified. It's a word I used to use a lot. Now I only use it a negligible amount.)

It was many years ago that Steve took me to the now defunct East Palo Alto Popeye's. I innocently ordered the red beans and rice with my order. And it nearly ruined my life. That smokey, creamy, salty, smoked meat flavor blew me away. I had to have it again. But I shortly moved away to a spot in the Midwest where there were no Popeye's nearby.

So, after moaning about it for a few years, I started to try to recreate that dang recipe, working from memory. And I learned a thing or two. Firstly, red beans are not trivially available. You can find all sorts of other beans such as kidney beans, pinto beans, black eyed pea beans, just plain black beans, great white northern beans and even navy beans, but small red beans are a bit of exception. After a bit of searching, I did find them at one grocery store (Marsh), in a can. And you can usually find them dried. How important is it to use red beans rather than say pinto beans? Very important. You know why... because the recipe is called red beans. Would you make soy sauce without soy? I thought so.

(The picture shows beans I bought from Pak-N-Save. I've elegantly marked the beans 07/07 indicating when I bought them, since things have a way of aging in my pantry unbeknownst to me. The Beringer Chardonnay at $22 was pricey but quite nice, and Wine Spectator agreed giving it 92 points.)

Beans present an interesting dilemma. Canned beans are convenient. Just open can after can, rinse, rinse again, and then rinse a third time and cook. However, dried beans are the way of a true cook. There is greater variety to be had. And they are cheaper but have to be soaked. And I found the overnight soak method sucks. I still have to cook the things for 3+ hours. However the quick soak method of bringing the beans and lots of water to a boil for a minute or two, and then letting it sit for an hour or two works nicely. After the quick soak, you only have cook them for 2+ hours. So that's what I do, even if I have planned ahead and could do the overnight soak.

Anyways, back to my odyessy. The main challenge was to get the smoky, salty flavor. Sausage is key and I've played around with many variations. I just love hot Italian in general, so it's hard to resist but it's not the right flavor for this dish. Linguica is pretty good, but not quite there. Hot dogs... let's be real, we're trying to recreate a masterpiece from Popeye's so we can't be using any old sausage. Bacon, again, isn't quite right, being a bit one dimensional on smoky. I finally settle on bratwurst, as in the kind Johnston's makes, which is available pretty much anywhere. This is a raw pork sausage, not the white sausage I've sometimes seen called bratwurst.

I cooked this recipe maybe 10 to 12 times. A few times I experimented with Liquid Smoke. Man, is that stuff vile. It smells nice in dilute quantities, but up close, it's nasty stuff on both the nose and the palate. It's a big smoke and mirrors game with chemicals.

By the fourth or fifth time of cooking it, the beans were pretty darn tasty. I could invite people over and trust making it the main dish. While I hadn't quite reached the pinnacle of Popeye's, it was a fine dish nonetheless.

And then on a trip to Chicago, I noticed a Popeye's on the interstate. We had to stop there on the way back. And 4 years after my initial Popeye's experience I finally got to retaste my beloved smoky creamy red beans. And ... mine were better! Way, way better! The Popeye's beans were still tasty, but they tasted like fantastic red beans pre-made in huge quantities using smoke and mirrors and grease and then shipped in a bag that you could still taste. There was no actual meat in them, too. Huh? And the smokey taste was kinda fake. It's like finding out your Hollywood idol ... well you know the analogy.

And so I kept making my red beans. And also ordering it from Popeye's whenever we visited Chicago. I recall ordering 4 big orders with no rice to go, which I would take back in the car in our 2 hour ride. And immediately making a pot of rice when I got home to eat those mass vat produced red beans as freshly as possible.

I also had a chance to visit New Orleans for Jazz fest a year or so later. This was exciting, as I got to taste the real deal, not some Popeye's "mockery" of the real deal. We went to a fine restaurant serving real Cajun food. And the red beans and rice was just terrible. I may not have even finished it all. Apparently authentic red beans and rice is a very bland dish to compliment the rest of the meal. Sausage flavor? Nope, unless they waved the andouille sausage near the 5 gallon pot of unflavored beans. Smokey? Nope, unless the chef lit up a Marlboro. Salty? Not a lick. (Get the pun?) It was blandsville followed by boredom. What the heck!?

Meanwhile I kept making a pot of my faux Popeye's red beans. And eventually, I found myself thanking Popeye's for making me chase after my faulty mental recollection of a mythical dish, which was really a gross distortion of the real deal. And after my red bean journey, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Smoky southern red beans
(Serves 6 to 12)

The quantities are approximate on purpose as there is a lot of latitude in making this dish.

16-32 oz dried small red beans or 48-64 oz canned red beans16 to 32 oz of chicken broth
16 to 32 oz canned whole, sliced or diced tomatoes of any formsalt
pepper

1/2 to 2 lbs of sausage, bratwurst or Cajun or creole or even Italian

2 tbs vegetable oil
(optional) 3 tbs Cajun seasoning, such as Paul Prudhomme
(optional) handful Chili power which is a mixture of cumin, chilies, onion and more
1 or 2 yellow or white onions
1/2 to 2 cloves of garlic
(optional) hot peppers or hot chile powder, your choice
(optional) celery leaves from the top of the stalks.

Quick soak dry beans. Drain and rinse the beans until the water is clear.

In a large pot, add the beans and chicken stock and tomatoes, not quite covering the beans. Bring to a boil and then let simmer, while preparing the remaining ingredients.

Fry up sausage if raw. Drain some of the fat away with a paper towel. Dump sausage into bean pot.

Chop up onion into small pieces. Smash garlic, remove skins and end bits. Chop coarsely. Heat oil or remaining sausage grease in a frying pan until hot and add spices for 15-30 seconds and then the garlic. Cook for 30 seconds; do not cook until it is brown. Add onions and cook until they are soft, perhaps 3 minutes. If you have hot peppers and/or celery leaves, bring the heat up back to med high and add the them to the spice-garlic-onion mix for 30 seconds until they start to release their oils. Dump the mixture into the bean/sausage pot.

Salt and pepper beans to taste. I like to add a good bit of salt. Add bay leaves.
Simmer beans until tender, which can take longer than expected, sometimes 3 hours. Optionally mash some beans against the side of the pan to thicken the sauce near the end.

Serve as is, over rice, over pasta or with hot buttered bread. Optionally top with freshly sliced tomatoes.

(Pictured: egg noodles, smoky red beans, 1.75 cups of green zebra tomatoes with di bufala mozzarella in an elegant serving dish. The Thorn Clarke 2005 Cab had a strong vegetal taste along with the ripe elegant fruit, making for a memorable wine.)