Red Beans and Rice

Name: Red Beans and Rice
Total time: 180 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 1 lb red kidney beans (dried, soaked overnight); 1 lb andouille sausage (half-moons); 1 lb ham hock (smoked); 1 unit onion (diced — trinity 1); 1 unit bell pepper (diced — trinity 2); 2 unit celery (diced — trinity 3); 4 clove garlic (minced); 2 unit bay leaves; 1 tsp thyme (dried); ½ tsp cayenne; 8 cup water (to cover by two inches); 2 tsp salt (late — after the beans soften); 1 tbsp vegetable oil; 1 ½ cup rice (steamed, for serving); 3 unit scallions (sliced)

Noodles & Rice · American · Latin American & Caribbean

15 ingredients · 180 minutes · 6 servings

Cook Now

Nothing flagged in the ingredient list. The label is still the last word.

Restrictions

Diets

No alcohol

Worked out from the ingredient list. It knows nothing about brands, shared equipment or cross contamination, and it is not a certification — if you have an allergy, you still have to read the label.

Ingredients

Servings:

1 lb	red kidney beans (dried, soaked overnight)
1 lb	andouille sausage (half-moons)
1 lb	ham hock (smoked)
1 unit	onion (diced — trinity 1)
1 unit	bell pepper (diced — trinity 2)
2 unit	celery (diced — trinity 3)
4 clove	garlic (minced)
2 unit	bay leaves
1 tsp	thyme (dried)
½ tsp	cayenne
8 cup	water (to cover by two inches)
2 tsp	salt (late — after the beans soften)
1 tbsp	vegetable oil
1 ½ cup	rice (steamed, for serving)
3 unit	scallions (sliced)

Optional

Not counted above. The dish works without them.

1 tsp

hot sauce (at the table, as the state constitution requires)

Steps

Sear6 min
andouille browned in the pot, trinity into its fat
the sausage until its edges crisp and its fat runs, then out — the trinity + garlic sweated in what it left, the same engine as the gumbo and the dirty rice because it is the same cuisine's same engine
Boil12 min
beans + water + hock + bay + thyme + cayenne — a REAL boil first
the soaked beans brought to a genuine rolling boil for ten minutes before anything gentle happens — not culinary preference but chemistry: raw kidney beans carry a lectin that a hard boil destroys and a lazy simmer does not; this is the one step in the entry with a safety citation instead of a flavor one
Simmer120 min
low, lid ajar, sausage back in at the hour, salt when the beans yield
down to the washday burble — the beans surrendering, the hock giving up its smoke, the sausage rejoining at the hour so it stays distinct; salt enters only when the beans are soft, both because pork brings its own and because the old salt-toughens-beans caution costs nothing to honor
Mash3 min
a cup of beans against the pot — creamy, never soupy
the catalog's bean-soup signature move, applied to its ancestral home: the mash turns the pot liquor creamy until a spoon stands briefly — 'creamy' is the Louisiana texture word and the test is visual: it should move like something between soup and dip
Top3 min
over rice, scallions, hot sauce within reach
- scallions
- hot sauce
a mound of rice, beans ladled over and around, scallions on top — the hock's meat shredded back in during the ladling; and the leftover note that is really the point: Tuesday's red beans outrank Monday's, which is why the pot was always this big