291779 Tue Feb 04 11:08:00 -0800 2003 18 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1589747 Anyone have a refried beans recipe? I tried making them last night but wasn't what I expected. The refried beans from the local Mex place (Hells Kitchen, NYC) are great - smooth, creamy w/melted cheese on top, seems very simple. Also, do pinto beans go by another name? Here's the recipe I used: 15 ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 medium onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon ground coriander 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 2/3 to 1 cup chicken broth, homemade or low-sodium canned Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) (optional) Reserve about a third of the beans. Mash the rest of the beans in a medium bowl with a large fork. Set aside. Cook onions until lightly browned. Add garlic and continue to cook, stirring, until lightly browned. Add spices and cook for about 1 minute. Add the mashed beans and half the broth; cook, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened. Add the reserved beans and the enough of the remaining broth to loosen up the beans. Simmer until the beans are thick but not pasty. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the fresh coriander, if desired, and serve. Tue Feb 04 11:08:00 -0800 2003 0 ultbil 1 1589755 You might try to keep it a little more simple during frying and use a different fat. I cook up the beans from scratch with bay leaf, epazote, garlic, pork (bacon or a ham hock), salt and pepper. Take out everything but the beans, then fry in some fat (pref. lard) while mashing. If you don't cook the beans with some kind of pork, it's more important to use an animal fat when frying. Tue Feb 04 11:53:21 -0800 2003 1589747 0 Greg Spence 1 1589756 Starting with canned beans is getting off on the wrong foot. I made some refritos the other day, and they were wonderful, first with pan-fried catfish, then with cheese enchiladas. I just took 1 lb black beans and 7 cups water and a couple sprigs dried epazote I had on hand and cooked this in my slow cooker until the beans were good and soft. Remove the sprig, ladle off all the water you can (and save for adjusting the texture) and mash away. Salt to taste. When I use pinto beans, I'll add pieces of fatty pork or pork rind or a piece of chorizo. A dried chipotle would be good, also. Then proceed as above. The above will give you 6-7 cups of frijoles. If you are making a smaller amount you can use 1/2 of that one-lb bag of beans (or 1-1/4 cup bulk beans), a little more water, and simmer as slowly as possible on top of the stove. My strong feeling is that refried beans are meant to be a simple thing -- something between a side dish and a sauce, and not something to gussy up or fancify. Sometimes, when I want to make a real cheap main dish, I'll add about 1/2 lb chorizo and some onion and chiles to the mix, and serve it with a little cheese on top and tortillas for scooping. Tue Feb 04 11:54:27 -0800 2003 1589747 0 Sharuf 2 1589760 What is epazote? Tue Feb 04 12:07:53 -0800 2003 1589756 0 ultbil 3 1589765 Epazote is an herb, which grows wild in many parts of the US, and of course southward. It's traditional to cook black beans with a little of it for flavoring. With a friend from Oaxaca, I gathered some by a river bed near Mendocino CA. but I don't think I'd be able to recognize it on my own. "Pigweed" is one of the many gringo names for it, but there may be other plants by that name, too -- I don't know. If you can't locate any, just leave it out. Tue Feb 04 12:37:30 -0800 2003 1589760 0 Sharuf 4 1589785 "Pigweed" is also a common name for lamb's-quarters, which is Chenopodium album. Epazote is Chenopodium ambrosoides. So they must be closely related. Hmmm... I wonder if the lamb's-quarters growing in my garden is close enough. Tue Feb 04 13:52:45 -0800 2003 1589765 0 C. Fox 5 1589808 Lamb's quarters has a much milder taste -too mild to be used as an herb for flavor. I like to use lamb's quarters leaves in the spring in recipes that call for spinach - gnocchi, ravioli, soufles and timbales are very good. I don't use it raw cause I don't like the mouth feel - it feels very gritty. The mouth/tooth feel makes me think that it has a high level of oxalic (sp?)acid (the same one in spinach). Tue Feb 04 15:47:14 -0800 2003 1589785 0 kass 4 1589879 I sort of suspected you might have better-than-usual dried epazote. Having tried the dried product available in stores, I now just skip the epazote unless I can find it fresh. Tue Feb 04 22:28:07 -0800 2003 1589765 0 squid-kun 3 1589766 Epizote is an herb that is used a lot in Mexican & Central American cooking. It's taste is hard to describe, sort of breathy. It is good with beans, eggs & potatoes. My ex-husband uses it as an essential ingredient in oil for french fries and he makes really good french fries. I use the leaves in lots of savory bean dishes, sometimes in omelettes, sometimes in egg salad. It is not good in the sweet Boston baked bean kind of dish. Epizote grows wild here in the northeast US - I never plant it, just pick from the plants that show up in my yard. I have never seen it fresh in grocery stores but I seen it dried in groceries that specialize in Mexican products. Good eating! Tue Feb 04 12:38:54 -0800 2003 1589760 0 kass 3 1589858 Epazote can never be mistaken for anything else--it smells like it has been soaked in a petroleum product. A sprig of fresh epazote is traditional to cook in frijoles-- Rick Bayless says not to use dried epazote--if you can't get fresh, leave it out. Sometimes I see it at the farmers' market in the summer, and sometimes find it wild. I sometimes use hoja de aguacate--dried avocado leaf and bay leaf, for flavor. Dried avocado leaf can be found in Latin markets-- in California, I could go into the backyard and get one fresh... When I cook frijoles refritos, I don't actually fry them. I saute a chopped onion in some homemade lard, and add it to the dried beans, various aromatic herbs, some cumin and a little salt, cover with water, and cook slowly all day, topping up with boiling water as it cooks. When the beans are really soft, I take out the leaves and stems and mash the beans with a wooden pestle or a stick blender right in the pot. Adjust the salt and cook down a little, if too soupy. Tue Feb 04 20:29:36 -0800 2003 1589760 0 zora 3 1589918 Here is a link to a very informative page on Epazote. Gernot Katzer's spice web site is one of my favorite food resources on the web. Link: http://www-ang.kfunigraz.ac.at/~katzer/engl/generic_noframe.html?Chen_amb.html Wed Feb 05 10:01:22 -0800 2003 1589760 0 StriperGuy 3 1589950 Surprised no one mentioned this, but the reason that epazote is found in many bean dishes, is because it is supposed to mitigate the gas-inducing side effects of beans. Wed Feb 05 14:11:51 -0800 2003 1589760 0 butterfly 1 1589886 Here's how we do it in the State of Jalisco, Mexico. I use either Flor de Mayo or Flor de Junio dried beans; in the States pinto beans would be analogous. Black beans are used in the far Southern reaches of Mexico~in Oaxaca, for example. _____________________________________________________ Pick over (for stones, sticks, etc) and rinse 1 lb dried beans. Put the beans in a 4-quart pot and add HOT water till the pot is about 2/3 full of water. I put a quartered small onion and two split-open serrano chiles in the pot as well. Some people add a big clove of garlic and/or a bayleaf, but most don't. Bring the pot to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cover with the lid ajar. As the beans swell and the water simmers off, add more BOILING water to keep the water level up. Don't add cold water; this causes the beans to split. Simmer 2-3 hours or until the beans are very soft. The length of cooking time depends on the age of your dried beans. Add salt AFTER the beans are cooked~if you add salt during the cooking process, the beans will not soften properly. The freshly cooked beans are now 'frijoles de la olla'~beans from the pot~and are sort of the 'first fruits' of the beanpot for the table, served one small bowl per diner~the beans and some liquid, a little cheese to crumble into them, and a little salsa fresca on the side~to accompany the main meal of the day. To make frijoles refritos: melt 'enough' bacon grease or lard in a heavy skillet. Sauté two split-open serrano chiles until the chiles are blackened. With a slotted spoon, add as many drained beans to the skillet (leave the chiles in there) as you think you require to serve yourself and your companions. Add a little bean liquid from the pot. Allow the beans and liquid to get good and hot, then mash with a potato masher until smooth. Add liquid as necessary to bring the frijoles refritos to the consistency you want. Correct the salt. Serve with crumbled queso cotija sprinkled over the frijoles refritos. I promise you that no one in Mexico uses yellow grated cheese. Further information: when you buy dried beans, they are FRIJOL (singular). Once they are cooked, they are FRIJOLES (plural). The meaning of frijoles refritos is not refried beans...it is WELL-fried beans. Tue Feb 04 23:36:12 -0800 2003 1589747 0 Cristina 2 1589962 Thank you for giving a real frijoles refritos recipe! That's exactly how they should be made! Thanks again! Wed Feb 05 15:12:42 -0800 2003 1589886 0 Tacha 2 1590004 This is great, thanks. The beans are soaked first, right? Wed Feb 05 19:35:19 -0800 2003 1589886 0 Millicent 3 1590007 I recall an article in the food section of (I think the L.A. Times), where the theory was put to a test that beans need to be soaked overnight, or brought to a quick boil and soaked for a period of half-hour to an hour. The conclusion was that while pre-soaked beans tended to cook a bit more quickly, there was no taste or texture advantage to just starting the dried beans in whatever liquid you're going to cook them in. In fact, they postulated that valuable flavor elements were lost, when the soaking liquid was discarded. It doesn't do anything to make them less flatulescent either. I haven't pre-soaked a bean since. Wed Feb 05 20:13:21 -0800 2003 1590004 0 zora 4 1590026 I've found that soaking black beans or small red chili beans is not necessary. However, large beans (like kidney beans) cook lots faster for me, whether in the pressure cooker or pot, and I like the presoaked texture better. BTW, my mother and I had one of our biggest arguments of all time over soaking beans. I was visiting, and offered to turn the leftover smoked turkey carcass into bean soup. I took a package of beans and put them to soak. She asked me, "You're going to bring them to a boil, right?" I said no, it was not necessary, as we didn't need them til tomorrow. Then I went for a walk. When I got back, I found she had boiled them behind my back. I was sooooo pissed. Like, you think I don't know how to cook beans, I've cooked lots more beans in my life than you have and I have a degree in cooking... Thank you for letting me vent. Wed Feb 05 22:08:57 -0800 2003 1590007 0 ironmom 5 1590086 Thanks for the funny story and thoughts about soaking. I've never not soaked beans -- I've always thought that w/o soaking they'd take a lot longer to cook. I'll try cooking some smaller ones w/o to compare texture. Thu Feb 06 13:05:15 -0800 2003 1590026 0 Millicent 3 1590019 You can, but there's no need to. I never do. Wed Feb 05 21:21:48 -0800 2003 1590004 0 Cristina