Well, the usual ham in Cajun country is tasso, which is s little drier and saltier than the sweet, pumped-up crap your mom probably cooked at Thanksgiving. The meat usually doesn't contribute much salt to the dish.

A word about salt, for the newbies. Salt doesn't vary all that much in salinity by weight but it does vary quite a bit if you use measuring spoons. A tablespoon of table salt is going to make a dish a lot saltier than a tablespoon of kosher salt, because the table salt crystals are smaller than the kosher salt crystals, so you can pack a greater weight of table salt in a tablespoon than you can kosher salt.

Be careful with your salt... You can always add more but it's hard to take it back out.

A variation of red beans and rice that I made the other day for lunch, using the recipe changes I outlined earlier in the thread. Not as soupy as most recipes, more meat than most.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1571773087.jpg

Oh man! Bacon grease subbed for lard would be a good call, and some andoille along with the ham - sounds like a keeper.
My mom cooked great ham and bean soup. Her "secret" was to cook the beans until they just started to come apart so the bean paste thickened the soup. It took all day.

Red beans and rice are good, but if she can make gumbo, !!!!! For a while I worked at a company that had a lot of employees from Louisiana. Every fall we had a chili cookoff and every spring we had a gumbo cookoff. Two best days of the year.
Yes, meat in the dish, flavor and to eat. It may be amazing peasant food, but thankfully, I’m not that kind of peasant so I like meat in the dish.

The Cuban black beans and yellow rice don’t need meat, but I do prefer a good red beans and rice with some meat in it.

It looks tasty, but I like it when the beans cook to a thick sauce.

I have been itching to try some RB&R since this thread first popped up. I made up something based on the theme, probably not authentic, but came out tasty anyway.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1573159381.jpg

Started with a couple tablespoons of bacon grease.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1573159381.jpg

Browned some ham and andouille and added a little sauteed onion and a chopped clove of Georgian Fire garlic.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1573159381.jpg

There are no small red beans available around here, so I used pinto beans. After soaking them for 24 hours I pressure cooked them for 11 minutes and they still weren't done enough to suite me, so I boiled them hard for a while - until they were falling apart and made a thick broth.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1573159381.jpg

Served with a piece of fresh cornbread and a good beer.

I'd say that was just about perfect. I assume authentic would be "whatever beans I've got."

I know it's blasphemy but I'm just fine with Zatarain's RB&R. It's a good, quick weeknight meal we eat a few times a month.

When I was working on a film in Atlanta I went to the local market and they had fresh Andoullie sausage so I grabbed a few boxes of Zatarain's. Cooked it up and stored it in a bunch of tupperware. When I left to go back to LA I left it for one of the locals and he called later and commended me on my great Southern cooking!

Red beans ought to be available about everywhere. I'm sure even Walmart carries them and you're seldom more than 5 minutes from a Walmart in this country. For those hard-to-find varieties, or for better quality beans, I suggest:

https://www.ranchogordo.com/

We are coming into Cassoulet Season. Order your beans now...

Nah, the type does matter. Although, the basic recipe for beans I gave earlier works with most of the usual suspects.

When not in the mood to cook, there's a small (chain) restaurant in Longmont (CO), Lucile's Creole Cafe, that makes a very decent red beans...almost as good as the wife's. Rare find to find decent red beans that aren't home made!

red beans are NOT red kidney beans

just sayin'

+1

I don’t know why kidney beans exist.

Figures I would check in on this thread around dinnertime and begin with the salivating. WD that bowl looks mighty tasty!

Roast chicken with rice and greens are on the menu for tonight. Mrs. Cajun works later today than I do so I am the chef du jour.

We smoked a bunch of meat this week. Have a few chickens. Once we pick the bones we'll boil the carcass so we make our own stock. The smoked stock in the beans is really good, when mixed with the right meat. We also use the smoked stock in the gumbo.

that's the way to do it

and... Geaux Tigers !!

I refuse to buy food from Walmart. The idea that you can go to the same place and get underwear, a set of tires, and dinner just doesn't compute.

Okay. Whatever blows air up your skirt.

Navy beans, ham and brown rice with hatch green chile.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1574800094.jpg