Red beans and rice | Southern U.S. style

virtually every warm weather culture on earth has some version of red beans and rice this is the version from around where i live in the southern u.s cheap easy tasty and good for you it's the night before and i will soak my pound of beans half a kilo my preference is for small red beans also known as mexican red beans i like how they taste and they cook pretty fast but a lot of people use red kidney beans for this which are totally fine too i don't measure the water when i soak i just eyeball at least enough for them to double in size while staying submerged people have such divergent opinions about whether you should salt your soak water or put baking soda in there or put nothing in there i increasingly think this is because all of the common methods work they just do slightly different things today i'm trying our friend kenji's method where you soak in like 15 grams of salt per liter that's like two tablespoons of morton kosher for this much water he says this gets you creamier texture inside the beans here we are the next day if you cook in the soak water you'll get more vivid color but i'm going with kenji today who advises dumping it and even rinsing he says he gets better texture this way and there is some research that says dumping the soak water reduces certain undesirable digestive outcomes but it's prob not a big difference either way i go back and forth on the matter big pot on the stove coat it with olive oil and time for the holy trinity as they call it in louisiana onion bell pepper and celery i'm going with red everything for the color i like a medium dice on my veg for beans if the cooked pieces are too big they can feel kind of slimy if they're too small they end up effectively thickening the sauce and making it mushy instead of silky in those go a big bell pepper i'm doing the trick where you fillet off the sides of flesh that you do want seeds and stem are all that remain toss those again shooting for a medium dice on this for the same reasons as the onion then a couple of stalks of celery the easy way to dice these is to cut them in half lay each half on its back lay your knife securely inside that channel and then cut each one into like three long bars do that to all of them and then you can line them up in one big stack and chop through super nice medium dice celery is one of the vegetables i've been advised to eat for the purpose of feeding my gut microbiome which i just had analyzed by the sponsor of this video thrive let's thank them the science on gut health is still emerging but there is mounting evidence that beneficial microorganisms in your digestive tract affect basically everything your immune system your weight your mood everything and modern diet and lifestyle are probably bad for the gut in many ways if you're having serious problems i think you should talk to your doctor but you can also order this kit from thrive send in a little sample and find out what bugs you've got inside you also which ones you maybe need more of i'm deficient in lactobacillus the dairy one yeah that tracks they'll give you some diet recommendations and if you want you can get personalized probiotics from thrive formulated for what your gut needs this is all legit here are the doctors do us both a favor and save 50 on your thrive test with my link in the description half off with my link thank you thrive now i'm just giving my trinity here a head start my heat is on high there's tons of water in here to evaporate out before anything will come close to burning as long as you keep stirring constantly when these seem half cooked maybe two thirds i'll squeeze in a tablespoon or two of tomato paste this brings red color and a lot of depth of taste sweetness and umami stir it in and it's filled with sugar so it's gonna burn if we don't get some other stuff in there fast all the beans and then some fresh water a lot of recipes call for chicken stock i think that's totally unnecessary we have a stronger source of meaty flavor coming in louisiana it'd probably be andouille sausage where i live in georgia a common choice would be this a smoked ham hock it's the very tip of the shank or tibia bone there's hardly any actual meat on it it's the part of the ham that people usually just use as a handle it's all skin and bone which makes it perfect for flavoring other things a smoked turkey leg would be great instead if you don't want to use any animal parts i'd suggest a spoonful of smoked paprika great stuff time for herbs and spices i'm doing a big shake of paprika mostly for color an even bigger shake of garlic powder a tiny shake of cumin too much and it'll taste more latin than i'm going for same deal on the oregano just a bit this to me is the defining herb of southern red beans and rice dried sage just a tiny pinch of salt for now the beans are already soaked in salt that ham hock is salty so be conservative i'm turning down the heat to like medium medium-low i don't like to cook beans at a full boil i suspect that makes more of them burst and stuff has a tendency to stick to the bottom of the pot and burn a simmer would just be too slow so i'm looking for a low boil or an aggressive simmer whether i put the lid on is chiefly determined by whether i'm worried i put in too much water or too little in this case i'm worried i put in too much so no lid let the steam evaporate i prefer lidless anyway it lets me keep an eye on things just stir this every now and then it should take like 45 minutes longer if you use kidney beans because they're bigger meanwhile i can get my rice going i'm doing brown rice since it's better for me and i actually prefer the taste i'm cooking it pasta style that is any large volume of excess water that i will drain away later for long grain rices i really believe in this method if your brown rice always comes out gummy try this it's foolproof i didn't even bother washing my rice all the excess free starch is going to drain away here's my beans after like 20 minutes yep i'm nervous i put too much water in there and my gravy is going to be too thin glad i left the lid off you cook your rice pasta style and there's no guesswork just fish out a few grains with a fork to drain the water and taste when you like the texture you're done this was done in like a half hour which is really fast for brown rice you could either drain really thoroughly in a sieve or just do that through the pot lid and then put it back on the hot burner uncovered for a few minutes to steam off any loose water there you go tender fluffy grains if i have any green herbs around like parsley or cilantro i like to tear those into my rice it just gives it another dimension but it's hardly necessary after like 45 minutes it's time to taste a bean and see if it's done they get a little firmer as they cool so i try to cook them until they're a little softer than i want them same deal with the gravy it'll thicken as it cools so it looks like i actually judged the water quantity exactly right but always be conservative you can always add more water you can't suck it back out i don't think this needs any more salt i am now going to do my little bean trick which is not traditional it's just awesome a tiny pinch of sugar a nutritionally minuscule amount for this much food and then a little splash of vinegar really just a tad of both i don't want to taste them per se i just want them to kind of make everything else taste a little more alive my heat is off now by the way that's why the gravy is thickening that ham hock has a couple good bites of meat on it you could gnaw on it if you wanted or you could probably freeze it and flavor another pot of beans with it i only made enough rice there for two portions by the way half a cup of dry rice i'm gonna freeze the rest of my beans for later and for garnish again i don't think this is traditional but since you've got the celery why not reach in and grab some of the celery leaves these are an amazing fresh herb and there's one more key ingredient you know if i wasn't going to douse this in a vinegar-based hot sauce i would probably put a little more vinegar in with the beans i think beans almost always need a lot of brightening just put the acid in at the end acid at the beginning makes beans cook super slow our pot is gonna give us like six or eight portions so there's plenty to freeze into ice cube trays now you can thaw out exactly how much you want for a weeknight meal and have it with fresh rice that brown rice though is quite good for the digestion speaking of which don't forget to save 50 on your gut health test with my thrive link in the description you know i'm originally from up north so i didn't grow up eating beans and rice but somehow that just tastes like home no matter where home is or what they eat there tastes like home can't explain why

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 655,495

Rating: 4.9195194 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: UOtE_mrV3SY

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/sirthomasthunder]

Is he uploading on Saturdays now too?