All-Day Baked Beans
This old-fashioned, down-home recipe was excepted with permission from Bean by Bean:
A Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon. Vegetarians and vegans may omit the salt pork and use an equivalent amount of butter, veggie margarine, any type of oil ( 1⁄ cup). For a Vermont-style, which is
2 closer to original Native American recipe, substitute
1⁄ cup to 3⁄ cup maple syrup for the brown sugar
2 4 and molasses.
YIELD: serves 8 to 10
INGREDIENTS
• 31⁄ 2 cups dried yellow-eye beans (also called yellow-eye peas, soldiers or Maine soldiers) or white beans, picked over, rinsed and soaked overnight
• mild vegetable oil or bacon fat, for greasing the
pot • 1 large onion, sliced • 1 tablespoon salt
•1 to 11⁄ teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper,
2 to taste
• 11⁄ teaspoons dry mustard
2 • 1⁄ cup packed dark brown sugar, to taste
3 • 1⁄ to 1⁄ dark molasses, to taste
4 2 • 1⁄ teaspoon ground ginger
4 • 1⁄ pound salt pork, rinsed very well, drained, pat
4 ted dry and diced.
PREpARATION
Drain the beans, and cook them on the stove top by the method of your choice until almost but not quite tender, 11⁄ to 2 hours, depending on the
4 age and variety of the beans. Let cool, then drain through a colander, reserving the cooking liquid. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Thoroughly grease the inside of a bean pot; you may also use any deep well-glazed casserole with a tightfitting lid. Scatter the sliced onion over the bottom of the pot. Spoon the cooked beans over the onion.
In a large bowl, pour 1 quart (4 cups) of the bean cooking liquid, and whisk in the salt, pepper, dry mustard, brown sugar, molasses and ginger. Pour this mixture over the beans to just barely cover. (Add some extra bean liquid if needed of hold back some of the mixture if necessary.) Scatter the salt pork over the beans, or bury it in the beans if you prefer.
Lower the oven heat to 250 degrees. Cover the bean pot, put it in the oven and let it bake slowly for 7 or 8 hours, adding boiling liquid — water or reserved bean cooking water — as necessary to keep the beans from drying out.
During the last hour or so, remove the cover so the beans have a chance to develop a nice crust. Serve hot, within a couple of hours of completion. Transfer any cooled leftovers to a covered dish and refrigerate; they’ll keep for 3 to 4 days.