Black beans Oaxaca-style

Question:

hello, my husband & i were in new york this weekend and ate at your wonderful restaurant.  we ordered a side dish of black beans and i am wondering if it would be possible to get your recipe – they were absolutely delicious.  thank you so much, joanne

Answer:  Here you go  This recipe is from my book The Food and Life of Oaxaca (Macmillan 2007). It is still available in stores and on  the internet.

Frijoles Negros Colados
Puréed Black Beans

This is an exciting variation on the theme of refried beans.  The taste immediately brings Oaxaca to my mind — the fragrant, anise-y avocado leaves and the delicate spiciness of the chiles are so characteristic.
Made with oil, this is an excellent vegetarian dish.  However, I usually use home-rendered lard for deeper flavor.

1 pound (about 2 1/2 cups) black beans,, picked over and rinsed to remove stones or grit
1 whole head of garlic unpeeled
4 medium-size onions, 1 left unpeeled
2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
3 árbol chiles, tops removed
12 dried avocado leaves,
1/2 cup lard (preferably home-rendered; see video Praise the lard) or vegetable oil

Frijoles Negros Colados
Cook the beans by the basic method for Frijoles Cocidos  (recipe below), adding the garlic and unpeeled onion to the saucepan along with the beans.  Start testing for doneness 45 minutes after adding the salt.  When the beans are tender, discard the onion and garlic and let the beans cool in the cooking liquid.

When the beans are partly cooled, griddle-roast the chiles (see post on roasting chiles.)  Place in a small bowl and cover well with boiling water.  Let soak for 20 minutes.  Lightly toast the avocado leaves on the hot griddle (just a few seconds, until the aroma is released). Crumble when cool enough to handle.  Set aside.
Drain the beans, reserving about 1 – 1 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid.  Drain the soaked chiles.  Working in batches as necessary purée the beans, chiles, and avocado leaves together in a blender, adding enough of the reserved cooking liquid to facilitate blending.  The mixture should be about the consistency of peanut butter. Alternatively, process in a food processor, adding enough liquid to achieve the right consistency.)  With a wooden spoon or pusher, force the mixture through a medium-mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding any fibrous parts that will not go through.

Cut the remaining 3 onions into thin slices.  In a large, heavy saucepan or Dutch oven heat the lard until rippling over medium-high heat and add the onions.  Cook stirring frequently, until they are well browned, about 8 minutes.  Do not scorch.  Scoop out and discard the onions, letting as much of the fast as possible drain back into the pan.  Add the puréed beans to the seasoned fat, stirring vigorously to mix.  Reduce the heat to low and cook, covered, for 30 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.
YIELD:  About 6 servings

Frijoles Negros Cocidos

Cooked Black Beans

This is the everyday pan-Mexican way of cooking all dried beans.  Remember that for plain boiled beans the cooking liquid is not considered some irrelevant by-product to be thrown away.  It becomes flavorful and concentrated, almost like gravy, and is always included in a bowl of freshly cooked beans.
Epazote, though not absolutely mandatory, is almost inseparable from basic cooked beans in any Mexican kitchen.  (There is a firm belief that it alleviates the gas problem.)  Otherwise, people are not given to gussying up ordinary cooked beans with seasonings.

Pre-soaking, so often recommended by United States experts, is usually ignored by Mexican cooks, including me.  Yet I have come around to using the soaking method for one purpose: when I plan to use the beans only partly cooked and combined with other starchy ingredients in a dough like the ones for some antojitos .  It seems to me that the pre-soaking makes it a little easier to standardize the truncated cooking time, which otherwise can be all over the place.  I give this way of treating them as a variation on the basic cooked black beans (see below).

Makes about 7-8 cups (or 3-4 pounds) cooked beans

1 pound (about 2 1/2 cups) dried black beans, picked over and rinsed to remove bits of grit refuse
1 large whole fresh epazote spring or 1 tablespoon crumbled dried epazote (optional)
2 – 3 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Place the beans and optional epazote in a large saucepan or Dutch oven.  For best results choose a deep rather than wide shape; in Mexico beans traditionally used to be cooked in a narrow-necked clay olla (pot).  Add enough cold water to cover the beans by at least 2 inches.  Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to low, and cook, partly covered, for 25 minutes.  Add the salt (it toughens the beans if added earlier).

Have a kettle of boiling water in reserve.  Continue to cook the beans, checking on them from time to time and adding enough hot water to keep them covered by at least 1 inch.  After another 20 minutes (about 45 minutes’ total cooking time), test for doneness by eating a bean or two.  If they are already softened, remove from the heat; otherwise keep cooking and testing until they are tender, adding more hot water as necessary.  Usually it takes about 50 – 60 minutes’ total cooking time until the beans are done and the cooking liquid is somewhat concentrated.  The oldest specimens may require more than 1 1/2 hours.
Serve the beans hot and fresh with a little of the cooking liquid.  If using them in another recipe, check the directions and drain or not as specified.

VARIATION:  For Frijoles Negros Semicocidos (Semi-Cooked Black Beans), the object is firmer-textured beans that can be worked into a dough with corn masa, plantains, and/or other starches.  Place the beans in a deep bowl or pan, well covered with cold water, and let sit overnight or for at least 4 hours.  Drain the soaking liquid.  Proceed as for Frijoles Negros Cocidos, but omit the epazote and salt and cook for only 25 – 30 minutes, until a test bean yields a little to the touch but is still somewhat chalky and resistant inside.  Drain well and use as directed in the individual recipes.  Feel free to halve or quarter the amount of beans if you don’t want to be stuck with a large surplus.