Red Beans & Rice

Fat Tuesday is the final day of decadence and wanton lack of restraint before buckling down and doing some serious atonement for your sins during Lent. It is the culmination of the season known as Mardi Gras.  Tomorrow, you'll perhaps have ashes applied to your forehead and spend the next six weeks denying yourself of all pleasurable things until Easter.  It 's all part of the guilt trip known as the Catholic religion. But the origins of Mardi Gras actually date much further back than the emergence of the Church of Rome, with many historians believing that celebrations of feasting and debauchery began in ancient pagan rituals of spring and fertility.  Regardless, the Cajuns of New Orleans know how to party and have conjured some fabulous culinary creations to help you usher in a season of abnegation.

Red Beans & Rice had humble beginnings and probably sprung from slave fare where there was little meat to share.  Somewhere along the way, humans figured out that beans and rice, when eaten together, form a completed chain of amino acids that constitute the same protein as is found in meat, poultry, seafood and dairy products.  Beans and rice recipes exist in almost endless varieties in virtually every culture. But Red Beans & Rice is distinctly from the bayous of southern Louisiana. While the dish may have started out as vegetarian, it didn't end up that way once the Cajuns had their say.  Today, no self-respecting Red Beans & Rice recipe is made without the addition of andouille sausage, a spicy, smoky pork sausage that New Orleans adopted as its own a couple of centuries ago.

In the days of yore, a pot of red beans was made on Mondays utilizing pork bones and scraps that accumulated from Sunday dinner.  It might have even sat on a hearth for days, providing sustenance throughout the week. Today, Red Beans & Rice is standard New Orleans fare available almost anywhere, any day and every great New Orleans chef has their own take on what is really a very simple dish.

The recipe below is an amalgamation of a number of recipes that I researched, borrowing an idea from one that was promoted on the Food Channel website by Valerie Bertinell.  Since she's an Italian from Delaware, I'm not too sure why she received a nod from the Food Channel to post a classically New Orleans dish, but she did inspire me by suggesting you use a smoked pork shank alongside the andouille.  I was terribly enthusiastic to actually find a smoked pork shank at my neighborhood butcher shop while I was shopping for the andouille! Not only did the shank impart a wonderful smoky flavor to the dish, the meat became incredibly tender and literally fell away from the bone, providing an added dimension to the flavors and textures of the beans and andouille sausage.

If you cannot find a smoked pork shank, the aforementioned andouille will carry the day and you'll be just as proud of your results.

Ingredients
1 lb dried small red beans
1 small smoked pork shank (about 3 pounds)
1 lb andouille sausage links, cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
1 large green bell pepper, finely diced
4 long celery stalks, finely diced
3 cups chicken stock (like, Kitchen Basics or Swanson)
1 14.5 oz can chicken broth (like, Swanson)
1/4 cup fresh or semi-dried chopped parsley
3 tbsp Creole seasonings (like Tony Chachere's or Zatarain's)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp smoked salt (like, San Francisco Salt Company Alderwood)
3 bay leaves
3 tbsp butter
chopped green onions for garnish
1 cup cooked white rice per serving of red beans

The Recipe
Pre-heat your Crock Pot or slow cooker by filling with very hot tap water and setting on high for an hour while you prepare the beans.

Rinse the beans and sort through for any pebbles or debris.  Put the beans in a large stock pot, cover with cold water by a couple of inches and bring the pot to a rolling boil over high heat for two minutes.  Turn off the heat and allow the beans to sit covered for one hour.  Drain thoroughly.

In the same stock pot, melt the butter over medium high heat, and saute the onions, green bell pepper and celery until the onions become translucent and begin to pick up a little caramel color, about ten minutes. Then, add all remaining ingredients in the stock pot except the green onion and pork shank, and bring it to a simmer for ten minutes.

Put the smoked pork shank in a covered microwave-safe dish, and zap for three minutes.

Drain the Crock Pot of the hot water, put the pork shank in the bottom and then transfer the beans from the stock pot to the Crock Pot. If you need more liquid, add additional chicken broth or water, filling the Crock Pot to within 1/2 inch from the top.

Cover and cook on high for three hours, then on low for an additional six hours.

When done, the meat of the pork shank will have fallen away from the bone, or you can nudge it away gently with a serving spoon.  You can also use your serving spoon to cut the pork meat into bite-sized pieces.  

Use whatever rice you like, but traditionally, New Orleanians use white, converted rice.  Remove the shank bone and bay leaves from the beans before spooning over the rice in a large soup bowl.  Garnish with the chopped green onions.

As they say on Fat Tuesday (and just about any other time in New Orleans), "Laissez les bon temps rouler!"  Let the good times roll!