Red beans and rice | Southern U.S. style

***RECIPE, SERVES 6-8***

1 lb (454g) dried small (Mexican) red beans
1 red onion
1 red bell pepper
2 stalks celery (plus celery leaves for garnish)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 smoked ham hock (or smoked turkey leg, or spoonful of smoked paprika)
paprika
garlic powder
cumin
oregano
dried sage
salt
pepper
olive oil
sugar
vinegar
hot sauce for garnish
cooked rice to eat it with

Soak the beans in enough water to keep them submerged as they double in size overnight. (Kenji recommends 15g of salt per liter of soak water, but plain water is fine too.)

The next day, you can either keep the soak water, or drain it out and rinse the beans clean. (The water has a lot of good color, but there's some evidence that it increases gas if you use it, and Kenji says he gets better texture by discarding salted soak water and rinsing the beans clean.)

Cut the onion, pepper and celery stalks into a medium dice, and put them in a big pot with a little olive oil. Cook over high heat, stirring constantly, until they seem at least halfway cooked. Stir in the tomato paste, then quickly add in the beans and enough water to cover everything before the paste burns. Drop in the ham hock.

Reduce the heat to a low boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans taste done — 45-60 min. At any point in the process, season to taste with salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, cumin, oregano and sage. At the very end, stir in a pinch of sugar and a tiny splash of vinegar (not traditional but very good).

Serve the beans alongside rice, garnish with celery leaves, and drown in hot sauce. You can try to eat some meat off of the ham hock, but keep in mind it was chiefly for flavoring the beans.

[DanGaEb]

Adam (probably): Wow I'm hungry, which ice cube do I feel like eating today?

[kojisyntax]

I really like how adam throws in the little useful tips like how to cut the vegetables without just assuming poeple know

[d.k.barker]

Thanks Adam! In North Texas, where I'm from we always used Pinto beans although everybody called them Red Beans. I'm nearly 80 years old. When I was a kid, some kids didn't always get enough to eat, so at school every Tuesday was Bean Day. A big plate of beans and a stack of cornbread muffins and a dish pan size of red bean gravy on each table. Also usually had hot dogs for meat and some kind of vegetable. The best though was the red bean gravy the cafeteria ladies made. You could have all the bean gravy and cornbread you wanted. It was fantastic. I really loved that. When in my late 20's I was back home and looked up the cafeteria manager to try and get the gravy recipe. She said "I bet I've had a hundred kids ask about that, but I just don't remember". My favorite meal has always been cornbread and red beans with a big slice of Vidalia onion and a big slice of Beefsteak tomato. Key ingredient for the beans is cummin.
Mesquite BBQed Lamb. Another area speciality a whole lamb cut into pieces about 3/4 " thick and Texas (Deep Pit) BBQed over Mesquite coals. Before the last man died who used to do these community bbqs I got the BBQ sauce recipe from him. A friend and I got a whole lamb and made a pit with chicken wire over a piece of road culvert. The sauce was basically a vinegar and mustard sauce, then about 30 minutes before its done you add ketchup to the mix. Cook very slow for about 6-8 hours. Near the end it still didn't taste quiet right, so I went to town again to ask him about it. He had forgotten to tell me about lime juice. This made all the difference!
I've often wondered why nobody has included this in some BBQ restaurant. Lamb cooked over Mesquite coals just has a completely different, very exotic taste, no lamb whang at all.
One last thing. For these big community BBQs we always had a kettle (old fashioned wash pot) of beans. Some people used to get a few Mesquite coals out of the pit, crush them and put them in the bean kettle. It adds a really good smoky taste.
Thanks again!

[Jesse__H]

I'm a very lazy, unimaginative cook but one thing Adam has sold me on completely is tomato paste. A squirt of that into a skillet or sauce pan makes such a big difference for almost no additional effort. I swear I use it in practically half the dishes I make, now. Thanks, Adam! 🍅❤️

[pmccartney]

Pro tip for you chefs out there: smashing some of the beans against the inside of the pot helps thicken it up by filling it with cooked bean starch. Real good stuff

[hashakah]

My north African family will always remember this in winter .

[skeriner]

One of my favorite things about Adam is how flexible and open minded he seems to be. A lot of the time he isn’t speaking as if his words are absolute fact, he’s telling you what works best for him in his experience, but he openly acknowledges that other people and cultures have their own successful ways of doing a similar task.

[awiseman]

Ever since adam’s video explaining that most kitchen accidents happen during the veg cutting phase he takes an active stance in explaining the most safe techniques to cutting fruits and veggies and I really appreciate that

[brugh]

I actually do the sugar + vinegar for most of my foods. The sugar might be maple syrup, honey or mirin and the vinegar might be balsamic vinegar, lime or lemon. As you said, not enough to affect the nutrition but it really balances the flavours and makes everything so much better.

[marcosvinicius]

As a Brazilian person, watching you cook rice and beans for almost one hour is crazy!! I cook this basically all week, I just use a pressure cooker. And only now I realise how much time it actually saves

[coffeestainedwreck]

I didn't notice this before, but layering the real-time sound of chopping over the sped up video really helps to emphasize the "walk, don't run" approach to cutting vegetables that you talked about. Nice touch!

[notthere]

About the sponsor for this:
At least the German association of gastroenterologists have called microbiome analysis like it "expensive and nonsensical".
Plus, on the website, they mention "leaky gut". A condition exclusively recognized as being a thing by the alternative medical community...

[daviferreira]

Brazilian here, beans and rice are our daily basis eating. Generally we eat it with some kind of protein. It's like a nacional treasure, literally everyone, least to east, north to south, poor an rich eat it.

[alextinajero]

Vinegar? Really? Are you just avoiding me now?

[lademoiselleketoret]

Why do some people always feel the need to disparage other people in regard to how they cook? I think people have watched too many Chef shows and think everything is a competition. The amount of aggression and ungratefulness displayed online is really stunning. I’m thankful many of us still can afford to make beans and rice. What a blessing. Thank you God. It’s great some ppl do this “faster” in a pressure cooker. Wonderful. You know what else is great? Knowing how to cook something like this without electricity. That’s a blessing. It’s not a competition people. God blessed the earth with a stunning array of things we can eat. Be thankful. Be thankful this guy decided to share what he enjoys. Instead of seeing it as some kind of international roller derby, see it as a way to add to your tool box of culinary skill. Some people are lifetime students and enjoy learning different things just because it is a pleasure for them. They enjoy connecting with ppl thru learning. Other ppl go thru life with a perpetual cloud and feel the need to cut down everything in front of them. For shame. Sad for you. I hope you can come into some semblance of peace and maturity in your life one day soon. Maybe then, someone will value what you have to share and rejoice with you in it. Blessings. 🙏🏽

[yuvvrajkperson]

Pro tip: Use the water for soaking the beans to water your plants. The water contains a lot of nutrition that is just going to waste. My mom does this everyday with all the vegetables she washes and our plants look quite good

[dripshameless]

Beans are probably the closest thing we have to "superfoods" and Adam's idea of simply freezing them in ice cube trays is incredibly efficient for getting nutritious food for the entire family after a long day's work. Cheers!

[HannesNitzsche]

I just made this - I omitted the ham hock for smoked paprika and gave it a few splashes of Maggi at the end. Very delicious! It’ll become a new staple for me. Thank you for sharing!!

[realkingofantarctica]

I'm more of a "Green Eggs and Ham" person, but "Red Beans and Rice" looks nice too.

[rafaelsanchez]

Never understood why "Rice and beans" was seen as a poor quality meal: It's quite literally one of the most complete meals you can eat hands down.