Arts + Craft Foods

Garlic, onions and tomato paste are deglazed with American-style pale lager for a Texan pot of beans from this San Antonio native.

In July 2018, in honor of Brooks Headley's newest publication, Superiority Burger Cookbook: The Vegetarian Hamburger Is Now Delicious, Headley and his chef friends Dave Rizo and Rick Easton gathered at Brooklyn's Museum of Food and Drink for a special event devoted to the humble bean. (Read the full ACF article here.)

What follows is an interpretation of the recipe Rizo demonstrated and produced with Headley to be served to the audience.

4 tablespoons grapeseed or other mild oil
2 yellow onions, sliced
6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped, plus 2 cloves, halved
4.5 oz double-concentrated tomato paste, like the tubed Cento brand
1 (12 fl oz) can Budweiser or other pale lager
5 whole pickled yellow tabasco peppers (try Goya or Texas Pete)
2 whole dried chiles negros (aka pasilla chile; check out Saveur's guide to mexican dried chiles for more info)
1 good quality bay leaf (I love all the product from The Spice House, here's their bay leaf)
1 lb high quality Cranberry Beans (try Rancho Gordo)
Salt

Heat 2 T grapeseed oil in a dutch oven or large pot on medium high, add in onions with a pinch of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes or until melted and starting to color. No need to caramelize completely, but the mixture should be getting to a uniform jammy texture and golden color. Remove from pot and set aside.

Without cleaning the pot, put back on medium high heat, add remaining 2 T oil and the chopped garlic, reserving the 2 extra cloves. Fry for about 2 minutes on high, until garlic is deep brown in color but not burnt.

Add your onion back in, followed by tomato paste. Stir and watch as the color of the paste deepens and begins to stick to the bottom of the pot, about 2 minutes, again being careful not to burn.

Deglaze with the beer by pouring the liquid in and stirring while scraping the bottom of the pot to mix in the fond; a sturdy wooden spoon is good for this task.

Simmer on high for about 5 more minutes, or until the mixture has reduced to the consistency of a ketchup or chutney.

Add yellow peppers, chilies, bay leaf, reserved garlic cloves, and beans. Stir and mix beans in until coated, then pour in water to cover beans by about 2 inches.

Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer and cook uncovered. Check on beans every hour or so, adding more water as needed, until starting to soften. Add a few pinches of salt, simmer for another 40 minutes or until done. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt. Even better after a night in the fridge.

Makes ten 400-calorie servings of beans, or twelve 340-calorie servings, before topping with rice and veggies.

Serve with...

...a ball of slightly sticky rice like this sushi rice, or experiment with a glutenous rice like this Japanese Mochigome

...topped with fresh greenery, sautéed with a bit of liquid from the beans.

Ideas of veggies to source at farmers markets, based on seasonal East Coast availability:

In Spring focus on asparagus, turnip greens, garlic scapes, fiddlehead ferns.
In Summer enjoy the bounty of string beans (beans on beans!), beet greens, broccoli, peas, spinach, swiss chard, zucchini.
During Fall get into brussels sprouts, and kale.
Over Winter meditate on the many layered cabbage.