ISO help w/red beans and rice, opinions please?

[deadmeataru]

so, new dude in the 'hood (yes, you have play with the pronunciation a bit to make that rhyme, grassy-ass for doing so).

ok, making Red beans and rice. ordinarily I just make mine with Andouille (seasons and provides meat and SOME fat in 1 go) but I was given a left-over approximately 8lb ham on the bone. So naturally I'm trying to cook off the meat, fat and hopefully some marrow to make a porky stock as well.

so here's the request for opinion part, keep in mind that time is not an issue here. is 6 hours on slow cook high in my Instapot ok or should I simmer it?

the plan is to later remove the meat to cut/shred to size and add the liquid to the already soaked, drained beans, using the instapot to then saute the cajun trinity, eventually adding the rest of my seasonings and any additional water needed (this is saved water from the beans soak) after the pork leavings, adding to beans pot and then simmering VERY low for 1-2 hours. I am NOT using a roux, in my experience the beans will thicken the liquid sufficiently without it. I'll clean and reuse the instapot in rice cooker mode for the obvious, combining in the service bowl.

 

[blissful]

The question seems too complicated for me. Welcome from WI.

I will say, those beans, all dried legumes (not lentils, sometimes not garbanzo beans) like red beans (like kidney beans or little red beans especially), need to be cooked at boiling for a minimum of 20 minutes and more like 40 minutes. NEED. https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/05/how-to-avoid-poisoning-from-red-beans/

Undercooked red beans/kidney beans have to be cooked enough.

So if You can pressure cook them in the IP they'll be boiled if you leave them in long enough. 20-40 OR, you can boil them on the stove 20-40, then SIMMER for until the cows come home/ as long as you want.

 

[deadmeataru]

sorry, should have said that, it's ALWAYS "bring to boil, reduce to simmer", excepting pasta where it's just boil

 

[taxlady]

sorry, should have said that, it's ALWAYS "bring to boil, reduce to simmer", excepting pasta where it's just boil

Simmering after just bringing it to a boil is not good enough. Did you see this part of the article that blissful shared above?

How to properly cook kidney beans and destroy toxins

• Beans should be soaked in water for at least five hours.
• Soaking water should be dumped, and the beans should be boiled in fresh water for at least 30 minutes.
• Do not use a slow cooker. Slow cookers do not get hot enough to destroy the toxins in kidney beans.

The science
Lectins are widely occurring, sugar-binding proteins, but some of them may become toxic at high levels. Lectins are known for their ability to agglutinate many mammalian red blood cell types, alter cell-membrane transport systems, alter cell permeability to proteins, and generally interfere with cellular metabolism, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

 

[deadmeataru]

I didn't say how long of a boil before the simmer, but the simmer is mandatory to get all the flavors to marry. That said I've been making this dish (with andouille or ham without a bone) for about 35 years, never had an issue, other than gastritis when I was learning the proper bean soak methods early on.

 

[caseydog]

Simmering after just bringing it to a boil is not good enough. Did you see this part of the article that blissful shared above?

If it matters to your point, red beans and rice don't use kidney beans. They use red beans, a totally different bean.

On another note, I don't see the sense in soaking beans overnight, then using the soaking water to cook.

CD

 

[Steve Kroll]

Basically, your question is just about the stock, right?

Everything I've seen says something along these lines about times for making stock from a ham bone:

• Instant Pot - 1 hour under pressure
• Slow cooker - 8 hours on high or 12-18 hours on low
• Simmering on stove top - 3 hours

Also, you can throw other goodies in there along with the ham bone... carrots, onion, celery, garlic, etc.

 

[caseydog]

I didn't say how long of a boil before the simmer, but the simmer is mandatory to get all the flavors to marry. That said I've been making this dish (with andouille or ham without a bone) for about 35 years, never had an issue, other than gastritis when I was learning the proper bean soak methods early on.

Cooking with your soaking liquid could be one reason for the gastritis.

Try bring the dry beans to a quick boil, then take them off the heat to soak overnight. That should help with the gastritis. It removes more of what makes you gassy after eating "the magical fruit."

CD

 

[caseydog]

Basically, your question is just about the stock, right?

Everything I've seen says something along these lines about times for making stock from a ham bone:

• Instant Pot - 1 hour under pressure
• Slow cooker - 8 hours on high or 12-18 hours on low
• Simmering on stove top - 3 hours

Also, you can throw other goodies in there along with the ham bone... carrots, onion, celery, garlic, etc.

I use a stock pot on the stove top for ham stock for my ham and bean soup. I also use onions and celery (I hate carrots). I cook with the lowest simmer possible until I like the taste. That's usually 3 to 4 hours.

CD

 

[Steve Kroll]

I hate carrots

CD

Carrots are your friend CD. One day when your eyesight starts to fail, you'll wish you ate your damned carrots.

Or at least that's what my grandma always told me.

 

[Jade Emperor]

The jury is out on soaking beans, with some people saying that it isn’t necessary, some people say that you should throw out the water to assist with digestion and others saying that the water contains valuable nutrients.
I say just do what works for you. There’s countless tips (or hacks…sigh) where you should try it out and make your own decisions. The only thing that matters is the finished dish - is it what you want it to be? Does it taste good? Is it inviting? Can you make it with relative ease?
If you don’t succeed, try and try again.

 

[deadmeataru]

yeah, the method I use for the soak is to discard and replace the bean water every 2 hours. I only use the water from the final soak stage. I don't like to boil dry beans without a presoak as it tends to leave them hard and yet splits the skin. and yeah, my question was only about the stock/getting the meat to basically fall off the bone as well as getting some of the marrow to come out. I didn't bother adding anything to the ham slow cook as a. it's left-over ham pre-cooked in a bourbon glaze (typical ham seasonings mixed into bourbon and blackstrap molasses, add a coke), and b. I'll be adding a bunch of sauteed cajun trinity (sub diced bell peppers for the carrots in a traditional french mirepoix) along with the seasonings and any water to cover a stock shortfall.

anyway, it's too late now, ham has been slow cooking since about 30 minutes before my initial post. But thanks for the input.

p.s. haven't even started the seasoning or trinity yet and the entire apartment already smells amazing.

 

[blissful]

The jury is out on soaking beans, with some people saying that it isn’t necessary, some people say that you should throw out the water to assist with digestion and others saying that the water contains valuable nutrients.
I say just do what works for you. There’s countless tips (or hacks…sigh) where you should try it out and make your own decisions. The only thing that matters is the finished dish - is it what you want it to be? Does it taste good? Is it inviting? Can you make it with relative ease?
If you don’t succeed, try and try again.

Yes the Jury is out on soaking beans, or adding this or that, or throwing out the water or keeping the water. (and throwing out the baby with the bathwater....ha ha)
You'll probably not meet someone that eats beans almost every day, except for me and most of my whole food plant based friends. 1/2 cup in baked beans, 1/2 cup in soup, some beans in black bean brownies, beans w/rice and 1 of 3 different salsas....we eat beans all the time and they don't make us gassy because we eat them all the time. How often? Every day in a meal sized salad, or in our lunches, or snacks.
If the bacteria in your stomach is used to them, it will digest them instead of ferment them which makes gas.
I get gas from not eating cabbage or brussel sprouts every day my own darn fault.
I would get bad gas from eating meat at this point, or eggs, or cheese.

 

[deadmeataru]

The only thing that matters is the finished dish - is it what you want it to be? Does it taste good? Is it inviting? Can you make it with relative ease?
If you don’t succeed, try and try again.

lol! I've been asked how I got to be such a good cook many times. My answer is always the same, "By ruining allot of perfectly good food!"

most of us learn more from our mistakes than our successes. and being too poor to afford something to replace the food I've ruined REALLY drives those lessons home

 

[taxlady]

I didn't say how long of a boil before the simmer, but the simmer is mandatory to get all the flavors to marry. That said I've been making this dish (with andouille or ham without a bone) for about 35 years, never had an issue, other than gastritis when I was learning the proper bean soak methods early on.

It's true you didn't say how long of a boil. But, when a recipe says "bring to boil, reduce to simmer", it means to turn down the heat as soon as it starts to boil.

 

[dragnlaw]

There are "hard" boils aka roiling and "soft' boils aka simmer. If you have air bubble rising the temperature is the same whether or not it is hard and fast or slow and soft.

 

[taxlady]

If it matters to your point, red beans and rice don't use kidney beans. They use red beans, a totally different bean.

On another note, I don't see the sense in soaking beans overnight, then using the soaking water to cook.

CD

There are quite a few beans that get called red beans. Do you happen to know the scientific name of the beans usually used with red beans and rice? Do other red beans sometimes get used with rice.

 

[taxlady]

There are "hard" boils aka roiling and "soft' boils aka simmer. If you have air bubble rising the temperature is the same whether or not it is hard and fast or slow and soft.

At sea level, water boils at 100°C/212°F. Water will bubble gently at less than 100°C. That is what most people mean by simmer. We generally want to see the full rolling boil to make sure it got all the way up to the boiling point.

I just checked. I didn't want to just rely on what I read somewhere. I live at Elevation: 34m / 112feet, so not much above sea level. I put a pot on the stove and sat next to it with my handy dandy Thermopen instant read thermometer. Bubbles starte forming at about 70°C. They were breaking the surface at 80 and I could hear it at 90. So, yeah, a simmer can easily be at a lower temperature than a rolling boil, which is what I had read.

 

[caseydog]

There are quite a few beans that get called red beans. Do you happen to know the scientific name of the beans usually used with red beans and rice? Do other red beans sometimes get used with rice.

I have some in the pantry. Ingredients: water, red beans, salt.

Red beans don't even look like kidney beans, or taste like them. Red beans are not kidney beans.

CD

 

[Kathleen]

Taxy, here is a good article on the differences. I find red beans a bit softer and creamier than kidney beans.

@deadmeataru Welcome to DC!