Cowboy Beans

In the previous column I wrote about Santa Maria Tri-Tip, that iconic California dish from the Central Coast. While Santa Maria Barbecue is the emblematic dish of the Central Coast, the cooks there are not one-trick ponies when it comes to cuts of beef. The Los Olives Café is known for its pot roast, which arrives in a bath of herb-scented gravy, heady with wine, lounging on a selection of the day's best local vegetables. Just down the street, ask your server at Sides Hardware and Shoes if the chef is preparing the signature Prime Fillet with Stilton and Port.

The steaks at The Hitching Post are renowned for the flavor and texture that come from being grilled over their famous firepit. Red oak smoke perfumes the air as a bottle of their house Pinot Noir is decanted tableside. A shrimp cocktail in a pewter cup arrives to inaugurate the meal along with that great steakhouse tradition, a celery tray of cut glass, offering cuts of crisp celery, plump radishes, pickled peppers, fresh olives. The accompaniments of choice for your steak are a green salad with Ranch dressing and rice pilaf.
 

Salsa is a condiment on both the breakfast and dinner tables. Santa Maria salsa is smoky from charring the chiles; soupy from its legacy of being mashed together. Garlic bread circulates as an appetizer to accompany cocktails and the first bottles of Pinot Noir being uncorked. A common side dish is a roasted pepper, fresh off of the grill, hot and mellow at once, self-resurrecting from a blanket of blackened Monterey Jack.

 

California Central Coast cooking is a legacy of Indian and Mexican tastes and techniques, developed around ranches and vineyards. It can be as fancy as a five-star restaurant or as cozy as dinner at home, but fundamentally it's cowboy cooking, as rustic as the pans rattling on a chuck wagon, as welcoming as the red clay path to a mission. Along with tri-tip, the emblematic dish of the Valley is the traditional side to accompany it: pinquinto beans stewed with tomatoes and chiles. Pinquintos, or Santa Maria Pinks, are very small pink beans native to the Central Coast valleys. While they are a grocery store staple in southern California, pinquintos are available by mail order here and here. Here is my recipe, based on tradition, for Santa Maria cowboy beans -- true legacy cooking indeed.

Cowboy Beans

If you don't have pinquintos, use pinto or red beans. Don't skip the step of plumping the beans; it is the best way to achieve the chewy texture that is an important element of this dish. I like to use a caldero to cook beans; you can obtain one from cookware stores, Latin grocery stores or here.

1 pound dried pinquinto beans

4 slices bacon

2 yellow onions

3 cloves garlic

1 dried pasillo, ancho or New Mexico red chile

1 8-ounce jar or can tomato sauce

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon stone ground mustard

1 tablespoon molasses

1 12-ounce bottle dark beer, such as brown ale, stout or wheat

Plump the beans

1. Pick over beans to discard any stones or stems. Place beans in a large pot and cover with water by two inches.
2. Turn the burner to medium-high. Bring the beans to a rolling boil.
3. Turn off the burner. Cover the beans and allow to sit 1 hour.

Prepare the beans

1. After 1 hour, drain the plumped beans and return them to the large pot.
2. Cover the beans with fresh water by two inches. Bring the beans to a rolling boil.
3. Cover the beans. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, until the water is absorbed and the beans are soft but chewy, 45 minutes - 1-1/2 hour.
4. Check the beans at the 45 minute mark for texture, and to add more water to the pot if needed. Continue checking the beans every 15-minutes until the beans are soft but chewy, per step 3 above.
5. Once the beans are cooked, empty into a large colander to drain while you prepare the sauce.

Prepare the sauce

1. Carefully pour the bottle of beer into a 2-cup measuring cup with a spout.
2. Tear the dried pepper roughly into bite-sized pieces. Place the pieces along with any seeds or expressed juice into the measuring cup with the beer. Stir to incorporate and set aside.
3. Place the bean pot on the stove top. Place the bacon into the pot. Turn the burner to medium and fry the bacon until very crisp, approximately 10 minutes.
4. While the bacon is frying, remove the stem and cap ends from the onions. Peel the onions. Cut the onions in half lengthways to form half-moons. Cut the moons into strips to form crescents. Cut across the crescents to form dice. Scrape the diced onion into a bowl.
5. Remove the tough outer skin from the garlic cloves. Place each clove on a cutting board. Place the flat side of a bread knife on each clove. Safely hit the flat side of the blade with your fist to smash the garlic clove. Scrape the smashed garlic into the bowl containing the onion.
6. Once the bacon is fried, turn off the burner. Carefully use tongs to safely remove the bacon from the hot grease in the bean pot. Place the bacon on a plate.
7. Carefully add the onion-garlic mixture to the hot grease in the pot. Turn the burner to medium. Cook the onion-garlic mixture in the grease until soft and fragrant, approximately 5 minutes.
8. Measure the brown sugar, mustard, molasses and tomato sauce into the pot. Stir together with the onion mixture.
9. Carefully pour the pepper-beer mixture into the sauce mixture in the pot. Use a silicon spatula to get all of the pepper-beer mixture into the pot. Stir to incorporate.

Finish and serve

1. Turn the burner under the bean pot to low.
2. Give the colander containing the beans a shake to express any excess water.
3. Place the colander on the rim of the bean pot containing the sauce. Carefully tip the colander so that the beans slide into the sauce.
4. Mix the beans and the sauce together. There should be enough sauce to coat the beans; if not, add 1/2 cup water. Cover the pot and cook until the beans and sauce are well-incorporated, approximately 10 minutes.
5. Once the beans are cooked, turn off the burner. Crumble the fried bacon into the beans and stir to incorporate. Serve the beans directly from the bean pot.