Nikujaga (Japanese Beef and Potato Stew)

I don't remember where I found the book on slow cooker dishes that contained this recipe - it was collecting dust in someone's house, and I was bored and flipping through to pass the time.  While looking at soggy chicken stews, and "stir-fries" that you cooked 8 hours, I was despondent.  But somewhere in the back, buried way beyond the potato soups and the poached fish with mustard dishes, and just before the wine-soaked pears, I found this gem, which is most definitely authentic, and which does very nicely in the slow cooker.

Nikujaga is an interesting dish if you know Japanese food, mostly because it's got a lot of western influence.  I can't name too many Japanese dishes that have whole potato chunks - possibly golden curry, and some kind of croquette called a korokke, which I may now have to make after having looked it up.  But I assure you, mention Japanese beef and potato stew to someone from Japan and they will say "NIKUJAGA!!", which I have tried a couple of times with great results.

I really like the flavors in this dish, which is slightly sweet, very rich, and incredibly filling and warming.  And there's very little to this process - you chop everything, throw it in the slow cooker for the day, and come back later to eat a delicious meal.  I first tried this in the pressure cooker, which took an hour, and then tried it in the slow cooker, which took 6-8 hours, and which I thought tasted nearly identical but was ready when I walked in the door.  Your call.  Also, if you really want to get fancy, brown the meat first in a bit of olive oil, and then continue.  It will be notably better, although totally non-essential.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Saffron and Candied Orange Peel

Thailand is done.  Time to start thinking about our next travels.  We were toying with Morocco, so we decided to check out a book on Moroccan food and make a few things, to see if we liked the flavors.  In the end, despite the library book being free, the resulting trip will probably cost us thousands.  If the food is similar to this, it's totally going to be worth it.  This stew falls under the "meats and sweets" category (sorry, Kevin), which is what I think of for Moroccan food in the first place.  Salty, slightly gamey meat browned thoroughly, served with some kind of preserved fruit and perfumed with the heady aromas of desert spices, like ras el hanout and saffron.  By the way, we found our ras el hanout at Williams-Sonoma, and I would recommend it, rather than making your own blend of 15-30 spices that you might not have, or that probably are none too fresh.

I think I have this dish figured out, except for the part where they say to cut a bone-in leg of lamb into 8 pieces.  What do they want me to do here?  We gave up and went with blade chops, which were already portion-sized, although they didn't look as attractive once finished.  But this was totally worth the effort, and if you already have an actual tagine, you should probably try this (although you probably have already).

A traditional Moroccan spice assortment: ras el hanout (Arabic for "head of the shop"), saffron, turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger

Lamb Tagine with Oranges, Saffron, and Candied Orange Peel

Modified slightly from Morocco, by Jeff Koehler

Serves 4

Total prep and cook time: 2.5-3 hours

• 1 tsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ras el hanout
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp turmeric
• ¼ tsp freshly ground white pepper
• Generous pinch saffron threads
• Salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2.25 lb / 1 kg bone-in leg of lamb, cut into ~8 pieces (we used lamb blade chops)
• 1 small cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 Valencia orange, scrubbed
• ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
• 8 cloves
• 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds for garnishing

In a tagine, dutch oven, or pressure cooker, add the butter, ginger, ras el hanout, cinnamon, turmeric, white pepper, and saffron.  Season with salt.  Moisten with the olive oil and blend well.  One by one, place the pieces of lamb in the spice mixture, and turn to coat.  Add half of the cinnamon stick and scatter the onion across the top.

Place the pot over medium heat, cover, and cook, turning the lamb from time to time, until the meat is browned and the onion is softened but not scorched, about 15 minutes.  Add 1 cup water, loosely cover, and cook over medium-low heat for 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.  If using a pressure cooker (PC), go with 30 minutes at pressure, and if using a dutch oven (DO), go to 60 minutes - the tagine is somewhere in between these in terms of cook time, and I'm basing that entirely on my guess based on how things came out, and how I know meat cooks in my pressure cooker.  During this step, deal with the oranges.

We went with 4 lamb shoulder blade chops, already cut into single serving pieces

Meanwhile, peel the orange, reserving the fruit.  Take two of the orange slices and set them aside to get your 2 tbsp juice.  With a knife, scrape away some – but not all – of the white pith from the peel.  Cut the peel into long, very thin strips about 1/8” wide.  In a small pan, bring 1 cup water to a boil.  Add strips of peel and a pinch of salt, simmer for 2 minutes, and drain.  Repeat one more time, then drain, rinse out pan, and return strips to pan with ¾ cup water.  Bring to a boil, then stir in sugar and add remaining cinnamon stick half and cloves.  Simmer until the liquid is syrupy and the strips of peel are tender but still a touch al dente, about 20 minutes.  Stir in 1 tbsp orange juice, remove from the heat, and let cool.

Try to peel the orange into one whole skin, then slice into long strips

After blanching once

Back to the lamb pot, add ½ cup water and remaining 1 tbsp orange juice and cook until the meat is tender, about 45 minutes (30 for PC, 60 for DO).  Add a bit more water if necessary to keep the sauce loose, or remove the lid to evaporate and thicken it.  Stir in the honey and cook the lamb uncovered for a final 5 minutes.

With a sharp knife, cut away any white pith from the reserved orange.  Carefully cut along the membranes separating the segments and remove them.  Lay the segments in a shallow bowl, spoon the syrup from the pan over the segments, and let soak until ready to serve.

To serve, divide lamb among four plates, and top with the sauce, orange segments, and strips of peel.  Lightly sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Italian Braised Pork Ribs with Tomatoes

Tired of your average BBQ ribs?  Looking for something new?  Search no further, I have the answer for you!  Trust in the Italians, those masters of piquancy and lovers of all things tomato (even though European explorers discovered tomatoes here in the Americas in the 1500s and introduced them to Italian cuisine only 600 years ago, but that's not the point).  There is a Roman dish called Italian Country Style Ribs, which I pull from the book Roma: Authentic Recipes from In and Around the Eternal City.  Don't worry, I looked at the reviews and you're not missing anything by not running out to purchase this book.  Let me rework this recipe that was reposted anyway, and you'll reap the rewards without trying to chase down the book.  I have modified it to avoid the use of the oven, and instead rely on my favorite of cooking methods - the pressure cooker.  If you are scared of the pressure cooker, first, shame on you, and second, you can bake at 350 F and wait around for dinner, and think about what you could be doing with those extra 2 hours of your life if only you were more courageous (I'm looking at you, Mom).

Italian Country Style Ribs with Tomatoes
From Roma: Authentic Recipes from In and Around the Eternal City

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 pounds country style ribs
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 28-ounce can Italian plum tomatoes with purée or juices
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• 1 rib of celery (with leaves), diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• parsley, for garnish

Pat ribs dry with paper towel and season on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil over medium-high flame in a heavy cast iron skillet. Brown the ribs well on both sides, turning them a couple/few times, about 10 minutes total. Avoid crowding them in the pot. Meanwhile, pour tomatoes into a bowl roughly chop them.

Transfer ribs to a plate and reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrot and celery to pot and cook for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning. Stir in garlic, rosemary and paprika and cook until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add wine, scraping up any brown bits, and cook until it’s almost evaporated, about 3 minutes. Dump all of this into your pressure cooker along with the ribs and any accumulated juices, arranging them in a single layer as much as possible. Pour chopped tomatoes and their juices over the ribs, working them in around the meat with a wooden spoon. Tuck the bay leaf into the tomatoes. Seal the pressure cooker, or, if you're baking, cover the pot you're baking in and transfer to the oven.

Braise ribs until very tender, 40-50 minutes for pressure cooker or 2 to 2-1/2 hours in the oven, carefully turning them about halfway through the cooking process if you're baking. Transfer ribs to serving platter as best you can - they may fall apart, as mine did. Serve with the sauce, over pasta such as penne, rotinin, or farfalle. Garnish with parsley, and have at it.

Pork Carnitas

If you've been to Chipotle (or any actual Mexican restaurants), you may have come across a mean pork dish called 'carnitas', which really just means "little meats" in Spanish.  Made famous in the Michoacán region of Mexico, large hunks of seasoned pork are cooked for a very long time in either broth (braised) or fat (rendered in lard, essentially) before plating with tortillas, lime, and cilantro.  I didn't quite feel like cooking an already fatty pork shoulder in lard for many hours, so I went looking for a broth recipe, and merged a number of them to create what I thought was a very flavorful but simple finished product.  Rather than deep frying to get the right kind of crisp exterior and moist interior, I created a two-step method of braising followed by quick browning in the oven, with enough liquid to prevent it from getting dry.  I've made this dish a dozen times, and it's a consistently easy hit among company.

First of all, this dish is greatly facilitated by a pressure cooker.  If you don't have one, a slow cooker might do the trick.  If you don't have that, maybe just a heavy pot.  And if you don't have one of those, you probably shouldn't be on this site.  To make this, I use picnic shoulder, but I've also used Boston Butt.  Either one is great, as it will have the right amount of fat to add to the very lean cooking method.  Don't get all crazy on me and put in a pork loin, or you will miss out on the flavor imparted by the fat which, if you do this right, is mostly cooked out in the process of slow braising.  An explanation is in the directions.

Pork carnitas, served simply with corn tortillas and black beans

Shredded Pork (Carnitas)

• 2 16 oz cans of chicken broth
• 1 lime, juiced, zest shaved first with zester or removed in large strips with a vegetable peeler
• 1 large scallion, cut into 3 pieces
• 3 garlic cloves
• 4 pounds of boneless pork shoulder
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander (cilantro)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp cumin
• Corn Tortillas
• Chili sauce, such as Pico de gallo, chipotle or whatever you like

The setup.  It's a very short list, not hard to gather

Cut the pork meat in chunks and discard big pieces of fat, but leave some fat as it adds to the flavor.  Set a large pot or pressure cooker over mid-high heat.  Add the pork, garlic, lime zest, bay leaves, cilantro, cumin, green onion, juice from the lime, and broth.  I like to zest the whole lime into the pot and then just cut it in half and squeeze the mangled fruit juice right in there, making for easy cleanup.  If you prefer more tartness, add more citrus to your braising liquid.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for about 3-4 hours or until the meat is very soft and pulls apart easily, or 1 hour for the pressure cooker.

Before simmering.  This is a really easy dish to get started, just throw everything in there and close it up.  Takes 5 minutes or less.

After simmering.  This meat is now incredibly tender and falling apart, so remove carefully

20 minutes before the stovetop portion is done, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Remove the meat carefully and place it in a roasting pan, discarding the green onion and broth.  If you did this right, especially in the pressure cooker, the meat will fall apart, so you may need a slotted spoon.  Try to let as much of the liquid drain out as possible, which should contain a lot of the rendered fat from the pork.

Shred the pork with two forks, removing large bits of fat to lean it out some.  Drizzle some cooking liquid over and throw in the oven to crisp up

Grab two forks and shred the meat into bite-sized pieces.  As you shred the pork, it will be obvious where there are large lumps of unrendered fat.  You can pull these out and discard, making for a much more lean finished dish.  After you've shredded thoroughly, ladle back on about 1 cup of the cooking liquid from the pot, which you are welcome to run through a fat separator to avoid consuming the rendered fat.

After a few minutes in a very hot oven, the pork will develop an excellent crispy exterior without getting too dried out.  Don't leave it in too long.

Bake for about 20 minutes until the meat is brown and crispy.  Heat the tortillas and enjoy, serving with your favorite chili sauce, queso fresco, chopped onions, and cilantro.  Garnish with cilantro-lime rice, radishes, black beans, fried plantains, or whatever you like.

I had vegetarian friends over, so I added some pan-roasted vegetables with sofrito and vegetarian black beans

This dish also happens to freeze well, and has a number of leftover uses.  Put it over nachos, make it into a breakfast burrito, throw it in tacos, etc.  Basically, in the words of Jim Gaffigan, all you need is "a tortilla filled with meat, cheese, or vegetables", and you can recreate essentially any form of Tex-Mex food.  But at least with this recipe you know your dish will be a winner.

Holy Mole Poblano!

Apparently there's a Mexican tradition to cook a really heavy stew called mole (pronounced mole-ay) and then bring it to picnics, where you feed it to your relatives on a hot day and then they pass out from all of the blood rushing to their stomachs trying to digest it.  I think this is a tradition many of us can get behind, so I present you with a recipe for mole.

Mole is like a Mexican version of chili, or curry.  It's got a whole bunch of varieties, and it's more of a type of dish than a particular recipe.  There are all kinds of interesting versions, many of which I was able to sample at Red Iguana in Salt Lake City, UT of all places - a strawberry mole, an almond-based mole, pumpkin seed-based, red, green, pink, cream-colored, whatever you can imagine.  However, if you ask most people who have had it, they'll tell you that even the most iconic mole - a mole poblano - contains some very interesting ingredients, such as nuts, chocolate, chile peppers, and then some kind of protein.  It does not, contrary to popular belief, contain any moles.

Mole poblano - enough to fell a bull elephant

WARNING: this is another labor of love dish.  Do not attempt this if you're just bored and curious.  You will need time, energy, a few strange ingredients, a big kitchen, and a food processor to do it right.  What?  You're still going to attempt?  Fine, but I tried to stop you.

I will mention before presenting the recipe that I scaled this up by a factor of 5, to feed 9 people.  We ate half of what I made, and still felt full.  I ended up using less than 5x the olive oil (maybe 6 tbsp total), and only about 6 cups of stock to make it the appropriate thickness.  So keep that in mind as you make...

Mole Poblano de Pollo (Chicken in a Poblano pepper Mole sauce)

from: I have no idea where, somewhere on the internet

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 4 chicken pieces, about 6 oz each
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 hot dried red chili such as chipotle, or 2 milder dried chiles such as ancho, reconstituted & finely chopped
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted, plus extra for garnish
• 1 tbsp chopped almonds
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• 3 tomatoes, peeled & chopped
• 2 tbsp raisins
• 1½ cups chicken stock
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• 1 oz/25 g semisweet chocolate with a high cocoa content, grated, plus extra for garnish

So you want to make mole, huh?  Well too bad, you have to spend an hour prepping first.  If you're crazy like me, you started with whole spices, fresh tomatoes and whole chickens, and toasted and ground / peeled / cut them up, respectively.  To see how to peel a tomato, check my other post on chili here.  While you're doing that, soak your chiles in boiling water, then take off the stem and scoop out the seeds, and chop coarsely.  This will ultimately go in the food processor, so feel free to slack on the precision a bit with your chopping.

All of the more interesting ingredients, ready to go.  Chocolate and peanut butter are among them - my cousin said the kitchen smelled like Reese's peanut butter cups

Blanching the tomatoes to remove the skin

Peeled tomatoes, ready for action.  This was surprisingly simple.

Now you're ready to start actually doing things.  Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large skillet.  Add the chicken and cook until browned on all sides.  Really brown it, don't just make it yellow.  And certainly not black, either.  Be sure to have enough fat in the pan, and don't overcrowd.  I did mine in two pans, over about 3 batches each, but I also had 27 pieces of chicken to deal with.  Remove chicken pieces with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Browning the chicken in multiple pans keeps things moving without you overcrowding.  Cast iron is far superior here.

Add the onion, garlic, and chilies and cook for 5 minutes, or until softened.  Add the sesame seeds, almonds, and spices and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.  Add the tomatoes, raisins, stock, peanut butter, and chocolate and stir well.  Add only as much stock as you think will be necessary for stewing the meat you're using - you don't want soup, this should be more like a curry consistency after you blend.  I found that placing each round of ingredients into separate areas helped to idiot-proof my throwing things casually into the pan without double-checking the recipe.  And, if you are hasty and didn't think to chop them up before adding, chop up the tomatoes somewhat with a knife or spoon while they're in the pan.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and let simmer for 5 minutes.

After cooking the onions, garlic and peppers, add the spices and nuts

Then things get really crazy - add the chocolate and peanut butter

Tomatoes could have gone in chopped, but I didn't think this through

Be sure to fill your pan dangerously full, so that stirring is nearly impossible and you make a huge mess.  Or don't.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor or blender and process until smooth.  Try to put a towel over the top so you don't spray mole all over your kitchen - it is best taken internally, not through the skin and clothes.

Into the food processor for a quick spin

Return the mixture to the skillet, add the chicken, and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat, cover, and let simmer for 1 hour, or until the chicken is very tender, adding more liquid if necessary.  If you're impatient, bust out the pressure cooker and cook for 20 minutes.

Serve garnished with sesame seeds and a little grated chocolate.  We served with homemade tostones and platanos (both plantain dishes), Mexican yellow rice, and tamales.  It was an excellent traditional feast, and well received by everyone.  Slightly sweet, nutty, rich, and just a little spicy.  I also had tons of sauce left over, which I froze to use next time I want to make this.  If that's the case, all you have to do is brown the chicken and then throw it into the ready-made sauce.  And don't forget to bring it to your next family gathering - especially if you are being taken against your will.

Beef Stroganov

I had some friends in town and decided to make this recipe, which I'd been saving for a while.  It was a lot of fun to make, because it involved some of my favorite things - fire, large hunks of meat, steam, and cast iron.  Taken out of context, this might mean I'm either ready to wage war or check myself into a ward, but at least in the kitchen this makes sense.

I did a bit (translated: 4 seconds on Wikipedia) of research on this dish, and discovered first that it should probably be called Stroganov, and not Stroganoff, because it's most likely named after the Russian family of that name, and therefore giving it the French spelling with the 'ff' is pretty much a slap in the face to this family, and might kick off another Cold War.  The dish is typically a meat stew, either beef or chicken, served commonly in a creamy, dairy-based sauce, and either over rice or pasta.  Somehow the recipe has been embraced by Iran, England, Japan, China, Sweden, Portugal, and a few others, though of course it's different in each country.

Though the dish in America typically calls for sour cream, it turns out that the Russians use their own, more epic soured cream called smetana, which is apparently richer and won't curdle, which can't be said for my light sour cream.  But alas, I was not able to find this in the grocery store, nor did I actually look for it.  The flavor and mouthfeel came out just fine, in my ignorant taste buds' opinion.

If you look up the original recipe I stole (which you shouldn't, it's more boring), it doesn't call for actually lighting the onions on fire.  But my version ended up receiving much fanfare, and produced amazing smells from sauteed onions that I had to resist eating right out of the pan.  So if you are bold, I recommend a bit of flambe when you make this.

Nothing says cooking like the imminent threat of destroying your home.

Beef Stroganov

mostly liberated from Tyler Florence, with adjustments

• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 (5 to 6-ounce) London broil, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 3 tbsp cognac or brandy
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 1/2 cups beef broth
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 pound fresh shiitakes, stems discarded and caps thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• 1/2 pound white mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• ¼ cup sour cream, plus more for garnish
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1 package egg noodles

Pat the beef dry and season it with salt and pepper.  Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a large heavy bottomed skillet over high heat.  Fry the meat in batches so that it is browned on all sides, placing on a plate if using a regular pot, or transferring to the pressure cooker if you are using it.  Lower the heat to medium and, if not using a pressure cooker, return all the meat to the pot.  Add the onions and cook until they are soft, about 5 minutes.

We've been through the discussion about not crowding the pan before, but again, this is all you want in there at at one time, to encourage browning rather than 'steaming' your meat.  This cut was labeled "London Broil", which in fact is not a cut but a style, and which was in fact a very lean cut of top round requiring extended braising to coax out any tenderness and impart the flavors we wanted.

Look - nicely browned due to the Maillard reaction, good flavor bits on that meat, and not totally cooked through until you put it in the pressure cooker.  Without this step, the meat will taste much more bland.

Now carefully, pour in the cognac and flame until alcohol cooks off.  You may consider turning off the stovetop before you do this, at the risk of screwing up and losing your arm hair, although if you are a woman maybe this isn't such a bad thing (though you didn't hear it from me).  You can either tilt the pan to expose the vapors to the stovetop flame, or better yet, use a long fireplace starter to ignite remotely.  Cook, shaking if you wish, until the flames die out.  If the flames reach your ceiling, please contact the distributor of your alcohol for a full refund on the price of your home.  A good safety guideline is to have a tight-fitting lid for the pan at the ready, to smother the fire if it gets out of control.

Adding the brandy, seconds before the action shot above.  Disregard my complete unpreparedness - no lid, no fire extinguisher, just a spectator with a camera and a beer in his other hand.  I think I hear the Allstate guy.

Once the onions are properly flamed, add the beef stock and red wine, or transfer to the pressure cooker and add everything to that.  Cook, partially covered, over a very low flame for 1.5 - 2 hours, or in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes.  Towards the end, start boiling a large pot of water for the noodles.

Fully browned meat, hanging out in a trench of red wine before its timely demise in the grip of my pressure cooker

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt 3 tablespoons butter in the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil.  Add the mushrooms, garlic, and remaining 3 thyme sprigs and cook until the mushrooms are browned and cooked through.  Remove from heat and set aside.

For a bit of variety and some more interesting flavor, don't skip on the shiitake mushrooms.

As you cook these, they will soak up the fat in the pan and then eventually let it go if you cook them long enough.  Keep stirring over medium-high heat, and they will eventually brown and become delicious.  They shouldn't 'squeak' when you're done.

Boil egg noodles according to package directions.  Drain and have ready to plate.

When the meat is done, remove it from the heat and fold in the mushrooms, sour cream, mustard, and parsley.  Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Serve stroganov with buttered noodles and a green vegetable of your choice.

The final setup

Add the mushrooms, sour cream, parsley, and mustard off the heat

The finished dish, served with asparagus over egg noodles.  High marks from all.

Spicy Black Bean Soup, or Beans: Nature's Digestive Nightmare

I'm not sure what it is about black bean soup, but my dad and I both seem to really enjoy it.  Maybe because we're Italian and it's a latin thing, or maybe because it's rich, fairly healthy, and not overly pungent.  A good black bean soup, to me, has a nice backbone of garlic and spices, but isn't overwhelming in any way.  It's served warm but not hot, and it's not pushy what you do with it - you can eat it as a dish or as a side.  It just exists to make you happy, which this recipe did for me.

I found a recipe for a basic black bean soup, but it called for canned beans.  And I wanted to start from scratch, using staples common to latin america that I knew I could keep for a while and pull out of storage at a moment's notice down the road.  So I made my version from dried beans, which requires some advance planning.  It also calls for cooking the beans with kombu, a form of kelp seen most commonly in recipes for dashi, which is the base for miso soup.  Kelp is one of the main culinary sources of glutamic acid (related to MSG, the condiment we all love to hate), and plays a strong part in the history of the word "umami", which many food lovers have been hearing a lot recently.  Cooking beans with the kombu will leach out some of the glutamines from the seaweed, and will give your vegetarian soup additional savoury notes without having to add chicken broth.

Now, as some of you may know, beans often pack a hidden surprise with them, in the form of awkward moments for you and your company a few hours after dining.  This is because beans contain a large amount of oligosaccharides, which are chains of roughly 2 to 10 simple sugars (such as glucose and fructose).  The human digestive track doesn't typically contain many (if any) anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, but the intestines do.  So guess what?  When those complex sugars find their way to the intestine, it's like Cinco De Mayo down there for your intestinal bacteria, and they just go to town.  And if you've ever made beer or bread before, you know that multiplying, festive bacteria create gas, and hopefully you can figure out what happens next.

Why We Should Keep Eating Beans

Fortunately for us, mankind recognized five things about beans a long time ago:

1. Beans are really healthy for you, containing high amounts of fiber, protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, and iron.  Along with lentils, they should be a staple in every vegetarian's diet, providing many of the necessary amino acid constituents that are otherwise hard to find in most vegetables.
2. If you eat a lot of beans, you can actually condition your body to break down their complex sugars.  It's a tough love campaign, but it will happen.
3. There are ways to cook beans that can remove a number of these complex sugars.  More on this shortly.
4. There are natural and man-made products to help with your crippling, post-bean gas.  These include products like Beano, and herbs that fall under the category of "carminatives", meaning prevent formation or they facilitate expulsion of gas.  This includes epazote, cumin, coriander, anise, and even pepper.  Side note - the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has decreed that "carminative" is his favorite word.  I'm not making this up.
5. Maybe it's worth it to just eat the beans and deal with the hand you are dealt afterwards.  Because, like my mom always said, "when life gives you lemons, just shut up and eat your damn lemons."

So How Should I Cook Beans so My Dog Will Stop Trying to Crawl Under the House After Dinner?

You may have heard a number of methods - soak them, soak them in distilled water, boil them for an hour, soak them AND pre-boil them, spin them in a bag over your head while throwing chicken bones on the floor and chanting, and so forth.  So I figured the best way to lay this one to bed was with actual, no-kidding data collected by Turkish researchers and published in the Pakistan Journal of Nutrition (where apparently this kind of thing is relevant).

In "The Effect of Soaking and Cooking on the Oligosaccharide Content of Sekera Dry Bean Variety (P. vulgaris, L) Grown in Turkey", by I. G. Sat and F. Keles, Pak. J. Nutrit. 1 (5): 206-208, 2002, many of the methods above are compared in terms of initial and final oligosaccharide content.  This included raw and soaking over a variety of lengths of time, cooking for different lengths, and cooking with or without a pressure cooker.  And here's the final breakdown, ranked from the most gas to the least:

Bean Gassiness Levels, Highest to Lowest

• Raw
• Cooked in boiling water (60 min)
• Pressurized cooking (121 C, 15psi) for 30 min
• Soaked in distilled water 12 hr and cooked in boiling water (60 min)
• Soaked in distilled water 18 hr and cooked in boiling water (60 min)
• Soaked in 0.5% NaHCO3 (baking soda) solution 12 hr and cooked in boiling water (60 min)
• Soaked in 0.5% NaHCO3 solution 18 hr and cooked in boiling water (60 min)
• Soaked in distilled water 12 hr and pressurized cooking (121 C, 15psi) for 30 min
• Soaked in distilled water 18 hr and pressurized cooking (121 C, 15psi) for 30 min
• Soaked in 0.5% NaHCO3 solution 12 hr and pressurized cooking (121 C, 15psi) for 30 min
• Soaked in 0.5% NaHCO3 solution 18 hr and pressurized cooking (121 C, 15psi) for 30 min

So clearly, the best solution to reduce the gas-causing sugar content is to do EVERYTHING, which I'm not prepared to do.  They go on to say that soaking in the alkali solution may destroy B vitamins, and propose using tap water as a good compromise.  So I'm prepared to use my pressure cooker after having soaked the beans for 12 hours, which I consider to be a fair compromise.  By the way, if any budding scientists read this and thought "how the heck can I boil something at 121 C?" since water boils at exactly 100 C, well, that's the magic of cooking under pressure!

That was a lot of science.  Let's go through a recipe and make it worth your while.

Spicy Black Bean Soup

This one's all me, baby - a Frankenstein recipe from many places

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups chopped red onion
• 1 4-ounce can diced mild green chilies
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped jalapeño chili with seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 1-pound bag black beans, soaked overnight in cold water
• 1 4"x8" piece of kombu kelp (found at asian grocery stores)
• 2 cups canned low-salt vegetable broth
• ½ cup red wine
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 lime
• 8 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• Sour cream
• Tortilla strips / chips, or corn tortillas and enough oil to fry them

If you're soaking your beans, put them in a large bowl of cold tap water.  Soak for 12-18 hours as directed by the Turkish folks above.  Then DRAIN this water - don't use it, or you're just going to end up with the same result as if you hadn't soaked them.

The soaked beans in the pressure cooker, along with the kombu for some extra flavor enhancement

Now place your beans and the kombu in a pressure cooker, bring to temperature, and cook for approximately 30 minutes.  The first few times you do this, err on the side of overcooked, but you can gradually reduce this if your beans start falling apart because they're overcooked.  You want them to have some bite, but not dissolve completely (unless you're into that sort of thing).

The beans after they've cooked for 30 minutes.  Check them to make sure they're cooked through; if not, boil for a few minutes

While beans are cooking, heat olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, green chilies, garlic, jalapeño, and cumin. Sauté until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Have this mixture at the ready. 

How could these ingredients possibly do you wrong?

Once beans are cooked through, remove the kombu, and add the mixture from the pan to the bean pot along with the broth, tomato, and wine. Bring soup to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer (not under pressure) until the flavors blend, about 15 minutes. Puree 3 cups soup in batches in blender. Return puree to same pot. 

If you want to get really fancy, take some corn tortillas and cut them in strips, then fry them in a little canola oil for 30 seconds and drain on paper towels.  Use these as a garnish - they make a world of difference and add some class to your soup.

Fried corn tortillas, as a garnish

Add 6 tablespoons chopped cilantro to the soup, season to taste with salt and pepper, and squeeze in lime juice.  Ladle soup into bowls. Top with dollop of sour cream, tortilla strips, and remaining 2 tablespoons cilantro.

Black bean soup, sans gas-causing sugars, garnished as I saw fit

Easy Brunswick Stew

I was in the mood for stew the other day, but I wasn't in the mood to go to the store.  All I had was some chicken legs, fresh corn left over from a BBQ, and assorted staples from my fridge and freezer.  So I started thinking, can I combine these things into a stew without leaving the house?  Cacciatore needs mushrooms, so that's out.  Chicken chili?  Nah, didn't have any cheese or sour cream.  Curry usually has more vegetables, so no good there either.  Ah, but Brunswick stew, now that's about the right combination of ingredients - chicken, corn, lima beans, canned tomatoes, BBQ sauce.  That's right, all the things a growing boy needs... plus lima beans.

Brunswick stew is, according to Wikipedia:

"a traditional dish from the southeastern United States. The origin of the dish is uncertain, and there are two competing claims as to the place in the South where it originated, in addition to some claim to a German origin.... Recipes for Brunswick stew vary greatly but it is usually a tomato-based stew containing various types of lima beans/butter beans, corn, okra, and other vegetables, and one or more types of meat. Most recipes claiming authenticity call for squirrel or rabbit meat, but chicken, pork, and beef are also common ingredients."

Thankfully, while I was fresh out of squirrel, I did have a stash of chicken legs around to put to good use.  And while a quick raid of the freezer turned up no lima beans (I'm not sure how many people wouldn't have this same problem), it did at least yield some frozen edamame - medium-sized, green, bean-like things that I could convince myself were lima beans, but without the funny taste.  Everything else basic I actually had on hand, which makes this the ultimate convenience stew other than straight-up chili.

It was about 7 PM when I got home, and I was pretty hungry.  If this stew was going to be ready before I keeled over, I was going to have to pull out the stops - time for the pressure cooker.  When you're pressed for time but you want something to taste like it's been cooking all day, there's nothing else out there that will get the job done, and I am no stranger to this thing.  I bought mine about 8 years ago after extensive research to assure me that I wasn't going to blow up my house or scald myself, based on horror stories remembered by my family.  Turns out pressure cookers are now, surprisingly, much safer than they were when they first were invented in the 1600s by Denis Papin.  They were originally called 'digesters', because they could break down bones into a tasty jelly in a matter of minutes (often before blowing up and killing legions of French chefs).  The principal is simple - increase the pressure by trapping boiling steam, and you increase the boiling temperature of the liquid inside, while also infusing steam into the food.  This ends up cooking food in as little as 1/3 of the normal cooking time.  Picture stew cooked in 30 minutes, beans cooked in 12, rice in 5.  I have a Presto pressure cooker, since they've been in the business for about 100 years, and I figure that's enough experience that they've probably got the details worked out.  If you're uncertain about what kind to get, here is a quick reference:

Safe to use...

...not as safe to use.  From the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris - a model of the first 'digester' or pressure cooker, called the 'Marmite'

You can tell which ones are safe by the lack of a GIANT FREAKING SCREW on the top, and also by looking for a number of safety release valves.  Anyway, me and my pressure cooker set off on a short journey to a pretty good meal, which from start to finish took about 40 minutes to prepare.  Not bad, considering the meat was fall-off-the-bone tender.

The recipe I used was a mash-up from Joy of Cooking, Paula Deen, and substitutions per what I had on hand.  The results were pretty good for the little amount of effort I put in (just brown some onions and chicken, then throw everything in the pressure cooker for a few minutes).  And while I wasn't sold on the edamame, which cooked themselves gray unlike lima beans, they still had some bite left to them, and a slightly nutty, sweeter taste which I thought wasn't half bad.  So now, I present to you:

Easy [Almost] Brunswick Stew

• 6 chicken legs
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
• 3 ears of fresh corn, shucked
• 2 cups edamame
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/2 cup BBQ sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce

Rinse chicken and pat dry.  Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne.  Heat oil in dutch oven and brown chicken on all sides.  Remove to pressure cooker, and remove all but 2 tbsp fat from the pan.  Reduce heat to medium and add onions.  Cook 5 to 7 minutes.  Add to pressure cooker along with edamame, crushed tomatoes, barbeque sauce, garlic, chicken stock, and bay leaves.  Seal, bring up to pressure, and cook for 15 minutes.  Release pressure and add fresh corn, simmering uncovered for 10 more minutes.  Season with Worchestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can still make this.  Just cook for 45-60 minutes in a large stock pot where it says 15 minutes, then continue as usual.  Still works, probably even tastes better and makes the house smell more awesome, but it will take longer.  Similarly, you could use a crock pot if you have one.

The cast iron skillet was clutch to get some color on everything

Just throw it in the pressure cooker and walk away

Add the corn for a few minutes at the end, and...

The finished product.  Not bad for 40 minutes of total prep AND cooking time!