San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
How the founder cooks the beans: Keep it simple
ove, at the company store in Napa and with beans, top left. Below, restaurants that use Rancho Gordo beans. negro beans and Californios in S.F.
Black beans with cochinita pibil at Luna Mexican Kitchen.
“I remember cooking them for the first time and somebody saying these are perfect,” he said. “The beans are awesome if you don’t mess with them too much and let them shine.”
At Son’s Addition (which is temporarily closed), rio zape beans — pintolike chocolate-y beans that were the founding inspiration for Rancho Gordo — were long served with a pork dish. Braised rio zapes also lay the foundation for a bean and charred corn salsa on sweet potato tacos at Otra.
Otra’s comforting ribollita stew combines Rancho Gordo’s meaty Christmas Lima beans with creamy gigantes from Iacopi Farms in Half Moon Bay. One of Otra’s opening dishes — pork tenderloin paired with ranchero-style stewed beans, a favorite of Cobarruvias growing up in Texas — will return to the menu this fall.
Ribollita features Christmas lima beans at Otra in S.F.
The Anchovy Bar, State Bird Provisions, San Francisco Anchovy Bar chef de cuisine Koji Yokoyama uses Rancho Gordo vaquero beans, a chili bean with black-and-white skin like a cow’s hide, to mimic the texture of mung beans in a Chinese New Year sticky rice dish he learned from his father-in-law. The beans and rice are wrapped and cooked in a banana leaf for eight hours, then pan seared. Crispy local squid tossed in a fish sauce vinaigrette and herbs top the dish.
Past Anchovy Bar dishes have featured another creative take: pickled beans.
Stuart Brioza, who owns the Anchovy Bar, State Bird Provisions and the Progress, has cooked with Rancho Gordo beans since the company’s earliest days. They’re often on the State Bird menu, currently in a donabe dish with fermented turnips and barley miso butter.
Sticky rice and vaquero beans in banana leaf at Anchovy Bar.
Plow, San Francisco Rancho Gordo beans have been on the menu at Plow since the popular Potrero Hill breakfast spot opened 11 years ago. The Midnight black beans anchor Plow’s chorizo and eggs dish: a layer of beans and chorizo topped with two fried eggs and avocado, plus corn tortillas on the side. The beans are cooked simply, the Rancho Gordo way, with sauteed onions and garlic, a couple of bay leaves and water.
“I chose them for their texture and dense, rich flavor,” owner Maxine Siu said of this black bean variety. “Their skins are never tough. You can tell the beans haven’t been sitting around for years.”
In March 2020, Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando tweeted his secret to cooking the company’s coveted dried heirloom beans: “SIMMER UNTIL DONE.”
He was joking, but only sort of. It’s best to treat the Napa company’s beans with a light hand, whether that’s a few aromatics with water or chicken stock. Presoak the beans, or don’t; Sando insists it doesn’t make a huge difference.
My own bean ritual is not far from what Sando recommends, and here it is for what it’s worth: I do soak overnight, then drain and rinse when I’m ready to put a pot on. I cover the beans in water and throw in a halved onion, halved head of garlic, slice of lemon, dried chiles and a glug of olive oil. As the beans cook, I taste the liquid periodically and add salt to yield a super rich broth. I stash containers of bean broth in the freezer to make soups or to add depth when cooking rice and grains.
The beauty of beans this good, though, is their adaptability. If I don’t have an onion, shallots will work just fine; sometimes, a bay leaf makes an appearance. As Sando says, “There is not one single method of cooking beans.”
The most important part about celebrating beans is, of course, eating them. Below are Sando’s directions for cooking the perfect pot of beans.
Note: One cup of dried beans will yield about three cups of cooked beans. One pound of dried beans, the size of Rancho Gordo’s packaging, will yield about 6 cups.
Step 1: Check beans for small debris and rinse well in cool, fresh water. Cover beans with 2 inches of water and soak for 4 to 6 hours (optional).
Step 2: In a large pot over medium-low heat, saute finely chopped onion, celery, carrot and garlic (or any combination you prefer) in olive oil until soft.
Step 3: Add beans and enough water to cover them by about 2 inches. Bring to a hard boil for 10 to 15 minutes.
Step 4: Reduce heat to a gentle simmer, using a lid to help regulate the heat, and gently cook until done.
Step 5: Add salt when the beans start to soften. If the bean-cooking water gets low, add hot water from a tea kettle (cold water will slow down the cooking process). Beans can take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours to cook, depending on the variety, size, age, water type, altitude and other factors. Slow and low is best!
Leftover cooked beans keep in the refrigerator for up to five days and can be frozen as well. If you are storing beans in the refrigerator, keep them in their cooking liquid so they don’t dry out.