BBQ Baked Beans – the kitchen sink

At least, this recipe seems to have everything in it – though oddly enough, you don’t really need to use the sink aside from rinsing the beans and picking out any bad ones. This recipe is basically a baked beans recipe modified to have some fun and flavor – smoky barbecue flavor, that is. It’s got a whole range of fun ingredients, and my version, while modified with several substitutions from the original (largely my mother’s suggestions, which removed some of the overpowering elements and upped the barbecue flavor), still has a whole mess of fun ingredients which turn baked beans into something, which, if not gourmet, is at least fun at parties.

That said, this is a time consuming endeavor. The actual work for the recipe takes maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, but the baketime required is upwards of 5 and a half hours. The best bet for this is to do it a day, maybe 2 in advance of when you want to eat the beans. I, personally, yet to manage this, but there’s always next time. The results taste good enough to warrant multiple testings.

The other difficulty with this recipe is the pan – a large, deep roasting pan with a lid is a must. The lid is necessary to properly trap moisture and cook the beans, while the size of the pan is needed to contain the liquid for the cooking. I suppose this could be done without a lid – I went without one the first time I made this, but the beans were dried out then, to the point of major texture issues. Very frequent stirring and repeated adding of water could compensate for this, but it’s a patch fix.

At any rate, though, the payoff is huge. I like beans quite a bit, so a version of baked beans with a fun, complex flavor is a dynamite idea, and I think it completely washes away the idea baked beans are canned crap, or warmed over cafeteria mush. These beans are worth the effort.

Ingredients

1/4 pound bacon

1 onion, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 lb navy or similar beans (I use great white northern)

1 cup black coffee (stronger is better, I use espresso)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup pancake or maple syrup

1 1/2 tablespoons mustard

1/2 cup barbecue sauce (A good brand is key here, I use Masterpiece, but will prefer Cattleman’s or Stubbs when I can get them a good price)

dash of hot sauce, or ground red pepper (heat is a personal preference, it’s better to go low than high here)

ground black pepper

additional barbecue sauce, to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees (It will be there for a very long time – this is not a recipe well suited to hot days). In a pan, cook the bacon, dice it, and add in the onion once the bacon has released most of its fat. Once the onions are somewhat browned and carmelized, add in the garlic, and cook briefly to brown the garlic. Then, add all of this to the large roasting pan.

In the large roasting pan, add ~8 cups of water, the coffee, the beans, the barbecue sauce, the sugar, the syrup, the mustard, the hot sauce, and the pepper. Cover this, and put it in the oven, cooking it with the lid on, stirring every 30 minutes to an hour, for about 4 hours, until the beans are cooked through and soft.

Then, once this is complete, cook the beans with the lid off for ~1 1/2 additional hours, to thicken and complete the recipe. Add any additional barbecue sauce, hot sauce, salt, and pepper in this period, and taste as you go.

At this point, the beans can be served, or let cool, and refridgerated or even frozen. They’re done, so enjoy them.