Cajun Red Beans And Rice : A How To

Cajun Red Beans And Rice

Today is a special day... Gameday!!! LSU vs Northwestern Louisiana. This means that something good gets cooked today! I’m going to show you a traditional red beans and rice.

First, the players:
1lb smoked pork sausage
1/2 lb Tasso
1/2 lb smoked bacon (not maple)
1 bell pepper
1 yellow onion
2 stalks celery
5-7 toes of garlic
32 oz chicken broth
1 lb dry kidney beans
1/4 cup parsley
1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
1/2 tsp white pepper
A few dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce
4 cups water (not pictured)
Butter may or may not be used. We will cover this later.

Optional ingredients:
Accent Seasoning (msg)
Worcheshire Sauce
Fish Sauce

Here is what you will be working towards. A staple of any coonass dinner table.

First, let’s prep. Chop the Tasso into small pieces. The sausage can be done a couple different ways. I prefer to cook it in large links. You may prefer cutting it into small pieces. It is really up to you.

Chop the onions, bell pepper, celery, and garlic and set aside. The parsley and green onions are for later.

Rinse your beans under water. No need to soak them and no need to pick out the broken ones. We will be breaking them on purpose a little later. This step is really just to check for pieces of stem or other general debris.

Let’s start sautéing our bacon. You don’t want to crisp it. You just want to render some of the fat and make a little color on the bottom of the pot.

Remove the bacon. It should still be flimsy.

As such.

I throw the links in and let them sizzle for a few minutes here. This really isn’t for browning the sausage, it is really more to crisp up the skin for later. Just roll the sausage around in the grease for about 3-5 minutes and remove.

Toss in your Tasso. You will stir this around until it starts crisping up a little and puts a little color on the Tasso. If you don’t have Tasso, you can substitute smoked ham here but don’t try to brown the ham. Just skip this step and add the ham in with the rest of the meat later.

Continue to crisp the Tasso.

Nice.

By the way, this is where your stove should live during this whole thing. Don’t use high heat. It will burn stuff.

This is the resulting fond from the browning process. If there is not much oil in here, you can add half a stick of butter. I had a little oil leftover from the pork so I just went to the next step without using the butter.

Toss in your veggies. Your kitchen smelled good before this but here is where the neighbors will come over and start wanting to know what smells good. This is seriously one of the best smells in a kitchen. Our job here is to sweat the veggies and use them to deglaze the pot. We will then cook them down until they reduce and begin to create a new fond, then we will deglaze and repeat. This whole veggie process should take anywhere from 20-35 minutes.

See how they pull up the fond?

While the veggies are cooking, chop up your bacon.

Oh look, a new fond has been created.

Add some water (maybe half a cup) and deglaze the bottom of the pot.

Notice the bottom of the pot is cleaner? Notice the veggies are getting smaller, softer, and browner? This is creating a ton of flavor.

Just keep stirring.

See the color changing?

Here is the deep brown color the veggies bring from cooking down.

And here is yet another beautiful find that shows up.

Throw in the chopped meats.

Add the chicken broth, water, and beans! Finally, we are getting to the simple part!

Bring this concoction to a boil and let it roll for about 15 minutes. Here, you have options. You can reduce heat and simmer in this pot for a couple of hours (finishing the final steps before covering to simmer). Another option you can use is to add to a crockpot and let it sit on high for 4 hours or low for 7-8 hours.

I chose the crockpot option because I had other things to do. You can see the sausage has been added at this point.

Chop up a handful of the parsley and toss it in.

Also toss in 1 tbsp of Cajun seasoning.

And 1/2 tsp white pepper.

This is a baseline for seasoning. If you did nothing else, it will probably be a liiittle underseasoned. You will have to let this simmer for a while and then at a later step, you will taste and determine what you need to add more of.

I like a few dashes of hot sauce. If you have a sensitive tongue, you can omit this. I would put just a touch of white vinegar to replace the hot sauce for flavor.

After you simmer for a while, pull out some of the beans and moosh them up with a fork.

Mooshed.

Return to the pot and stir. If you want super creamy beans, do the mooshing step one more time. I did. Return to a simmer for a little while. Here is where you taste the beans. Do they need more salt? Add it. Do they need more pepper? Add it. This is also where you add optional umami ingredients. I personally add about a tbsp of fish sauce. You can add msg, worcheshire sauce, mushroom powder, or whatever you use for umami. None of these are “traditional” but Worcheshire sauce is very common in south Louisiana.

The bowl shot was up top. Here is your fork shot. GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!