Drunken Pinto Beans
When I talk about easy recipes, sometimes I’m lying and I think they’re easy but others may have trouble. This one is actually really easy. Throw some stuff in a pot with very little prep and cook until it tastes and looks the way you want. It tastes great and each time you re-heat it, it looks more and more like refried beans. This is good. Refried beans are good. This is adapted from a recipe on the New York Times Cooking site.
Ingredients
- 1 lb pinto beans, rinsed, picked over, and soaked overnight in water and salt (you don’t have to do this if you don’t feel like it, the internet lacks consensus on this)
- 1 white onion, cut in half
- 1 bay leaf
- ¾ pound thick bacon
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp paprika
- 1 tbsp cumin
- ¼ tsp cayenne
Put the beans in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy-bottomed pot and cover with water by one inch. Add the onion, bay leaf, and bacon and bring to a boil. If you want even more flavor out of it, consider browning the bacon in the Dutch oven before this step, removing it, then dicing the onion and sautéing it in there until translucent before adding the beans, bay leaf, and bacon into the pot along with the water. Bring the water to a boil and cover partly, then bring down to a simmer and let it do its thing, simmering for about an hour.
Remove the lid, add the salt and spices and simmer until they’re extra creamy and have reduced down to the thickness you want and they taste bangin’. Remove and discard the bay leaf and onion halves. Remove the bacon and chop it roughly then return it to the pot.
YOU’RE DONE YOU LUCKY DUCK!
