Red Beans and Rice

This is one of the versions that the late Jeff Smith published; it appeared in his first book, The Frugal Gourmet. It's simple and basic, but it gets the job done. Every other recipe I've ever seen is either obviously bad in some way (one wants you to use canned pinto beans) or involves baroque ingredients like pickled pork that are difficult to obtain and/or prepare.

Note the presence of the "holy trinity" of Creole cooking, onion, green pepper, and celery. I've seen recipes using scallions instead, which can be OK (I had scallions in a fine version in New Orleans once), but don't make this without all three ingredients. Oh, and don't forget that this is traditionally a Monday dinner.

1/2 lb. small dried red beans
1/2 lb. ham hocks or smoked ham (have a bone in there if you can)
1 chopped yellow onion
3 stalks chopped celery
1/2 chopped green pepper
1 tbsp. parsley
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic
4 tbsp. butter or margarine
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco, salt, and pepper to taste

3 cups cooked white rice (1 cup raw or a bit more)

Soak the beans overnight in water, covering them by at least an inch. (If you forget this, Julia Child has a method involving an extra hour of cooking instead. Either I did it wrong or it doesn't work.) Drain the beans, and put in a heavy cooking pot with the ham, onion, celery, parsley, bay leaves, and garlic. Add water to just cover, bring to a boil, and then turn down so that it simmers. Keep an eye on it, adding water as necessary to keep the beans covered.

Cook uncovered or just lightly covered for about two hours, and then add the green pepper, butter or margarine (I'm told it must be margarine for authentic New Orleans-ness, but I've never tried it, because we never have margarine), Worcestershire, and Tabasco. Simmer for an additional hour with the lid of the pot on.

If you used ham hocks, at some point in the last hour fish them out and pull the meat off the bone. Chop up the good meat (ham hocks usually have some rasty stuff you'll just want to discard) and return it to the pot with the bones.

Serve over the white rice.