I started out making Emeril’s red beans & rice recipe using stock and three kinds of pork. I was comfortable thinking ham hocks were the key ingredient to a great pot of beans. And I still believe that pork and stock are great ways to crank up the flavor. But then I got a lesson on minimalism and learned that keeping things simple can work out just fine.
I found some of these little red “silk beans” at the Mexican market that I’d never noticed before. They were exactly like this bag:
I bought the bag then went home and googled “frijol rojo de seda” and came up with some recipes and the following video which is as basic as it gets.
They don’t soak the beans. They just put them in a pot of boiling water with an onion and a head of garlic and add salt at the end. That’s what I did. At a simmer it took 4 hours until they were tender. She looks like she keeps the water more at a boil. In the time it took my beans to cook, the onion halves and whole garlic cloves basically dissolved into the broth. Pretty close. Now I just give them a rough chop first. I found that I got a darker broth that was a deeper red color than hers. It’s very tasty.
I’ve experimented with embellishing it by adding dried peppers. Pasillas work pretty well. But the simplicity of the recipe got me to rethink my approach to beans and it’s given me a lot more options.
In my searching I came across a number of recipes for gallopinto (or gallo pinto, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus and I’m not sure which I prefer but I lean toward the latter). It fries the beans above with pilaf style rice with onions and peppers. That stuff is awesome and now when I make the beans I’ll make a pot of rice pilaf just to save for the next day to make gallopinto. I see these beans all over now and from various brands but since the first bag I bought was from Nicaragua, I went with the Nicaraguan recipe.
https://eatsbythebeach.com/nicaraguan-gallo-pinto/
https://www.seriouseats.com/gallopinto-nicaraguan-rice-and-beans-recipe
There’s a lot of versatility in how to make it. Adding Canadian bacon was a winner.