Smell-o-Vision

 

 

You know how much I love to quote Emeril Lagasse whenever I find a dish that's so flavorful "you could put it on a bumper and it would taste good," or that some dishes are a "food of love thing." One Emerilism I haven't gotten to yet is how he would complain about the limitations of a TV cooking show: “Oooh! I can’t wait till we get Smell-o-Vision so you can smell this at home!”

 

I'm with him on that one. There's not much better than a house filled with the "domestic perfume" of sizzling onions or something that's been cooking all day in the slow cooker. Well, this dish right here may take the Smell-o-Vision cake. We made these baked beans for the first time with Moriah and Dylan on the recent Seattle trip. Once the onions and spices are added, they bake in a very low oven for 8 hours, and the aroma is just incredible, with the taste right up there as well. If you serve this, as suggested in Cool Beans, over roasted potatoes and with a fresh garden salad, it will feed a small dinner party.

 

You have to love Roman beans (also known as cranberry or borlotti beans), which is what I used for this batch; the color is amazing. Pinto beans also work.

 

 

New England Baked Beans

Adapted from Cool Beans (2020) by Joe Yonan

Time: ~10 hours (hardly any of it hands-on), not including the optional soak

Other options for cooking the beans include using a pressure cooker for the first bake and a slow cooker for the second. The baked beans are great served over roasted potatoes. If you go that route, you'll need to jack up the oven temperature to roast the potatoes, so you can take the beans out of the oven after 7 hours, transfer them to the stovetop (be careful of the hot handles), and simmer verrry gently (just a few bubbles here and there) until the potatoes are done and you're ready to eat. 

1 pound dried beans of a plump, creamy variety, such as Roman/cranberry/borlotti or pinto or Jacob’s cattle, picked over and rinsed
Water
2 (3-by-5-inch) strips of kombu (dried seaweed)
1 small yellow or white onion, thinly sliced
105 grams (⅓ cup) maple syrup
80 grams (¼ cup) molasses
2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, plus more to taste

    1. To soak the beans (optional): If you're using dried beans from a local farmers market or a high-quality online purveyor like Rancho Gordo so you know the beans are fresh, you don't have to soak them. But if you buy supermarket dried beans (like those pictured above) so you can't tell how old they are and want to ensure they get tender within a reasonable time during the first bake, you may want to soak them overnight. If so, the night before you cook the beans, in a large bowl, stir 1 tablespoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt into enough water to cover the beans by 3 inches. Cover the bowl and leave it on the counter, at room temperature, overnight. Drain before proceeding with the recipe.

    2. Place a rack in the bottom center of the oven; heat to 350 degrees (see note).
    3. Place the beans in a Dutch oven or other large pot. Add enough water to cover by 2 inches. Add the kombu. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover and transfer to the oven for the first bake.
    4. For the first bake, bake until the beans are very tender, 60 to 90 minutes or possibly more. If you covered the beans with water by 2 inches, you should have plenty to keep them submerged, but check halfway through just to make sure, and add more water if the beans are no longer covered.
    5. Towards the end of the first bake, you can slice the onion and mix together the salt, pepper, and other spices.
    6. For the second bake, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees. Remove the kombu. Stir in the sliced onion, salt, mustard, smoked paprika, ginger, and pepper. Bake for 8 hours until the beans are falling-apart tender (see note). 
    7. Stir in the vinegar. Taste, and add more vinegar and salt as needed. Serve promptly, as a side dish or as a main dish over roasted potatoes and with a garden salad. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 week. Makes 8 servings.