Beer-Baked Beans
Cleaning out garages is an awful job, and I put it off until mine was so overstuffed I couldn’t jam in anything more. But there are rewards too, like finding old kitchen treasures and remembering the wonderful food associated with them.
Poking through cobwebs in one dark corner, I discovered a box of kitchen implements, each neatly wrapped in yellowed, crackly newspaper. The largest bundle contained a chipped crockery bowl, the one my mother always used for baked beans. I remember the rich fragrance as the beans cooked for hours. It was a simple dish, just navy beans, a chunk of ham, an onion stuck with cloves, brown sugar and a layer of bacon slices over the top. And of course the bowl. The beans would not have been the same without it.
I always ate sliced tomatoes with the beans, nothing more, and this was one of my favorite meals. The flavor, so tantalizing, came back to me as I dusted off the bowl, so I brought it to the kitchen and set about resurrecting the old recipe--nothing had ever been written down.
Here it is, along with other vintage bean recipes that deserve another chance. Most are quite simple because they come from an era when cooks used only a handful of ingredients, varying these with great skill for different effects.
The essential ingredient for my mother’s beans is, of course, an old crockery bowl. That you’ll have to hunt for at garage sales and thrift shops--unless you too have a garage stuffed with long forgotten kitchenware.
Wash the beans and soak them overnight in water to cover.
The next day, drain the beans and place them in a large saucepan with water to cover generously and 4 cloves of garlic. Bring the beans to a boil, reduce heat and cook, partially covered, until the skins wrinkle, about 1 hour.
To roast the chiles, hold them with tongs directly above a gas flame, turning until charred on all sides, about 10 minutes, or place them beneath the broiler. When charred, put the chiles in a glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let them sit until cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes. Remove and discard the skin, then chop the chiles. Set them aside.
Mash the remaining 4 cloves of garlic in the salt until dissolved to a paste. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the onions and garlic paste and cook until the onions are tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and chiles and cook until the tomatoes are softened, about 5 minutes.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Remove 1 cup of beans with a little of the cooking liquid and mash thoroughly. Drain the remaining beans, reserving the liquid, and place in a bean pot or deep casserole. Stir in the mashed beans, the onion mixture, beer and 1 cup of the reserved liquid.
Bake until the beans are very tender, adding the reserved liquid as needed to keep them from drying out. Accompany with separate bowls of chopped onion and cilantro to add as desired.
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