Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Bacon in a bottle

Just after Thanksgiving,  Aaron and I were eating lunch in a train car diner in Lamy, New Mexico with a couple of friends whom had picked us up where Amtrak had left us off after arriving home from California.  For those that live in New Mexico, I highly recommend the Lamy Station Cafe http://www.lamystationcafe.com/talladega.html  It's worth the good food and the ambiance this authentically old dining car from 1950 provides.  The owner is a fellow foodie and fellow ex Southern Californian...she genuinely cares about what comes out of the kitchen. 

On this outing, I had ordered the baked beans as my side with my burger.  I took one spoonful of the beans and flavors exploded and suddenly me and my taste buds had to know the recipe...the owner was semi hesitant, so to make it easier on her, I began to call out some of the 'guessed' ingredients.  The main flavor that I recognized was Liquid Smoke.  I have used the product for years now, but I still meet people that look at me funny when I mention it in a recipe.  There are many good things about it.  It's not bad for you, and the process of making liquid smoke removes some of the supposed bad carcinogenic stuff that occurs  to food items that are actually put thru the smoked process.  The web will provide you with more information if you feel a need to delve further regarding this product. 

I use it in many applications in my kitchen.  I use it in making barbeque sauce, in marinades for my jerky, and often when I am feeling the need to be just a tad healthier, I substitute it for bacon.  I don't mean that I sprinkle some next to a couple of sunny side up eggs at breakfast.  There are recipes such as soups that call for bacon being cooked and then sauteing vegetables (sofrito) in the bacon fat as your base.  You can knock off a whole lot of the saturated fats in a recipe by eliminating the bacon.  In the right combination with other spices and such, you can acheive bacon-esque flavors.  I have seen several different brands of liquid smoke and within the brands there are flavors such as mesquite and hickory.  I don't have a preference.  If I am at a Mexican foods store in Espanola versus a Whole foods in Santa Fe the product will be different on each store's  shelf.  Usually they stock it along with barbeque sauces.   Ok so back to the beans in the 1950 diner car...I went home and pretty much duplicated the baked bean recipe using Liquid Smoke.  I was thrilled that it was one of those recipes that tastes so good with so little work.

1950 Diner Car Baked Beans

One small bag of dried navy beans
one red onion finely chopped
three cloves of garlic finely chopped
two bay leaves
1/4 cup brown sugar
three tablespoons liquid smoke (any flavor)
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp brown prepared mustard
salt and pepper to taste

In a dutch oven,
Saute the onion in a small amount of olive oil for 10 minutes over medium heat
add the garlic and saute for one additional minute
add the liquid smoke, the vinegar, the mustard, the brown sugar, the onion powder and stir to combine allowing to cook for one additional minute
add the bag of navy beans and pour in enough water to cover an inch beyond level of
beans. 
Add bay leaves
Cover pot and cook in center of oven at 225 degrees for 6 to 8 hrs
Check for doneness at 6 hours
add salt and pepper to taste when done and remove bay leaves

You can do this recipe in a crock pot too, but I prefer to slow cook my beans in a regular oven at 225 degrees because there is not a need to presoak them and the end result tends to be a much thicker soup than when I cook them in a crock pot.  The Low setting of a crock pot is about the same temperature, but I think there is something about containing the beans in a cast iron dutch over that enhances the cooking process for the beans.  It is just what I have found through experimenting in my kitchen. 


happy tooting!

robert

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