We served these at my birthday party a few weeks ago and some friends (Hi, Kasha and Debbie!) wanted the recipe and we said, “Sure, we’ll send that to you later this week!” and that never happened so this is our apology to them for our tardiness…
As much as I don’t have a drop of Hispanic blood in me (23andme says I’m 99.9% Northern European…) I like to think I can make a good pan of refried beans–the original of this is from Helen’s mother and grandmothers (…) but has been modified to use oil instead of lard or bacon grease–I’m not sure if Helen misses the original or not, but she prepares them this way also, so I’ll take that for what it’s worth!
Ingredients
- 3 cups dried pinto beans
- olive oil; other oils such as sunflower will work, too. Not sure exactly how much on this as we pretty much just add until it seems right
- salt. Lots of salt. At least it seems like a lot of salt–at least a couple of teaspoons in the end
- freshly ground black pepper; to taste
Preparation
So the beans obviously take a long time to cook and there are different ways to get that done depending on time available and whether or not you remember to soak them the night before. There are just a few key things to know about it:
- use enough water; it should be inch(es) above the top of the beans. If you are pressure-cooking them, then follow the guidelines for the pot as you don’t want to plug the valve (we have a few stories about that)
- bring the beans + water to a boil for a couple of minutes, then drain the water and refill with fresh water. This supposedly gets rid of some of the compounds that cause digestion problems for some people.
- cook them for a long time–or what seems like forever. If they’re gritty (my description) or crunchy (Helen’s word) at all, then they’re not done. For non-pressure-cooked beans this will likely be more than an hour and a half even after soaking. Of course, you don’t want them too soft either so pay closer attention after they’re almost done… This is where cookbooks fail, if you ask me–they say things like “cook for 5 minutes” and you think “oh, I need to cook it for 5 minutes” but you really need to just cook it until it’s the right amount for whatever you’re trying for…
Once the beans are done, do not discard the water! Get a big cast-iron skillet pretty hot–on our electric stove (I know, I know, real cooks use gas stoves) I set it to about an 8 out of 10 and let it get hot. When it’s hot enough (it doesn’t need to be max as you’re not trying to really fry the beans) start ladling in the beans with some water from the pot. You want some water in there but it should be mostly beans. Think of just using a measuring cup to scoop the beans up getting mostly beans.
Anyway, once you have the skillet mostly full, add a bunch of oil–just drizzle it around the top and mix it in. We probably end up using 3+ (or more–it’s really hard to tell!) tablespoons in a batch. Add at least a teaspoon of salt and grind some black pepper on top and mix it all up and let it heat up and bubble.
At this point you should start mashing/stirring the beans using something like a potato masher (in a pinch, you can use the back of a large spoon, but that’s somewhat masochistic). I like leaving a bunch of beans unmashed but I admit that tastes vary on that–a lot of people like smooth refried beans, but not me! (I also like lump mashed potatoes–some say I’ll write that recipe up!)
Reduce heat and keep stirring until it’s able to simmer without burning on the bottom and let cook for a few more minutes. Add more salt. Yeah, it’s “to taste” but everyone seems to like the “salt” part of “beans, oil, salt”. Add some of the reserved bean water if it needed.