Red beans and rice | Southern U.S. style

Updated at: Thu, 17 Aug 2023 03:29:21 GMT

Step 1

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.)

Step 2

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.)

Step 3

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.

Step 4

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).

Step 5

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.

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