Prior to meeting my spouse, I’d done a ton of work trying to make good refried beans, there’s a taste they have at the family run Mexican restaurants that I’ve never been able to mirror. Here’s the trick.
Seperated your beans and juice, keep both. In a shallow pan, heat more oil than you think you need. Here’s the key part, crush two good sized, dry chili peppers and 3 cloves of fresh garlic and put them in the hot oil. Let them fry until they’re dark, like maybe a minute more than burnt. Add the beans to the oil, cook them until most of them split. Mash them with a potato masher as you mix the juice into the pan. Stir until smooth, add a touch more garlic and salt, and cook until it gets to your desired thickness. Most places around here serve it thin like a sauce, I actually prefer it thick like a paste, about as thick as humus.
As for prepping from dry, after you soak them, add them to a pot with 1 dry pepper, 1 onion halved, a fist full of beef or pork bones, oil, and enough water to cover everything by like 3cm. As a vegetarian, instead of the bones, take 3 or 4 shitaki mushrooms, rough choped, dry pan them until they’re about to burn, then put that in the beans. Simmer for 2 hours - 6 hours. Adjust salt before serving.
The two biggest take always are the nearly burnt part and seasoning the oil. That nearly burnt part imparts a far more complex flavor and brings smokey notes that I’ve never been able to pull off without woodsmoke. Seasoning the oil and cooking it like that is basically making a light chili oil, if you’ve ever had it at a pho or ramen shop you already know how much a good chili oil can add to a dish, so imagine replacing plain vegetable oil with a lighter version of that.
Prior to meeting my spouse, I’d done a ton of work trying to make good refried beans, there’s a taste they have at the family run Mexican restaurants that I’ve never been able to mirror. Here’s the trick.
Seperated your beans and juice, keep both. In a shallow pan, heat more oil than you think you need. Here’s the key part, crush two good sized, dry chili peppers and 3 cloves of fresh garlic and put them in the hot oil. Let them fry until they’re dark, like maybe a minute more than burnt. Add the beans to the oil, cook them until most of them split. Mash them with a potato masher as you mix the juice into the pan. Stir until smooth, add a touch more garlic and salt, and cook until it gets to your desired thickness. Most places around here serve it thin like a sauce, I actually prefer it thick like a paste, about as thick as humus.
As for prepping from dry, after you soak them, add them to a pot with 1 dry pepper, 1 onion halved, a fist full of beef or pork bones, oil, and enough water to cover everything by like 3cm. As a vegetarian, instead of the bones, take 3 or 4 shitaki mushrooms, rough choped, dry pan them until they’re about to burn, then put that in the beans. Simmer for 2 hours - 6 hours. Adjust salt before serving.
The two biggest take always are the nearly burnt part and seasoning the oil. That nearly burnt part imparts a far more complex flavor and brings smokey notes that I’ve never been able to pull off without woodsmoke. Seasoning the oil and cooking it like that is basically making a light chili oil, if you’ve ever had it at a pho or ramen shop you already know how much a good chili oil can add to a dish, so imagine replacing plain vegetable oil with a lighter version of that.
These are some great tips! I’ll try it out this week sometime. Thank you!
Have fun! My mil is writing the recipe for adobo and posole so my spouse can translate them, I’ll get that to you soon-ish.
🤤 You are a Lemmy Saint