Friday Recipe…

| April 4, 2020


Navy Bean Soup

…a day late. Sue me.

Senate Navy Bean Soup

You’ll need:

1 pound dried navy beans, picked over

1 pound ham (preferably with bone)

1 large russet potato, peeled and quartered

Kosher salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Freshly ground pepper

You’ll do:

Put the beans in a large bowl and cover with about 3 times their volume of cold water. Soak overnight in a cool place. (Fast method- Cover beans with 2″ water. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, remove from heat. Let stand for at least an hour. Prepare as below)

Drain the beans and transfer to a large pot or Dutch oven. Add 10 cups water and the ham. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low and cook until the beans are tender, about 1 hour, 30 minutes. Transfer the ham to a plate to cool slightly, then remove the bone, if used, and dice the meat. Return the meat to the pot.

Meanwhile, cover the potato with water in a saucepan and season with salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer until the potato is fork-tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain the potato; transfer to a bowl with the milk and mash with a potato masher or fork until smooth. Add the mashed potato to the bean soup and stir until combined.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, garlic and parsley and cook until the vegetables are translucent, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the vegetable mixture to the soup, reduce the heat to low and cook 1 hour, adding up to 2 more cups water if the soup is too thick. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with crusty bread, chilled beer or a bold red vino, and some friends.

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23 Comments
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5th/77th FA

Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find. Whine and whimper and you’ll eventually get your way, they’ll give in just to shut one up…for awhile.

Tanks matey, I likes me some ham bone with beans soup. That FOD walk on the beans is for sure a must do. Never figured out why Navy Beans always had some pebbles in the bag. Done this in the crockett pot, simmered lowly all night, but never thought about mashing a tater up to mix in it. Cool pro tip. Thickens it up nicely and adds the starches. Mama would add a little flour for that.

Good skillet of buttermilk cornbread would go well also. Hmmm, I think I gots a leftover honey baked ham bone in the freezer.

Poetrooper

Earlier this week, ol’ Poe made a big pot of Great Northern Hambeans (a brand available at Walmart) using most of your ingredients. I use hickory smoked ham chunks and add a healthy slug of Worcesterhire and a can of KOB Broth (Yuenglings.) Also a handful of chopped fresh cilantro instead of parsley, something we learned years ago in Texas from a friend in San Antonio who owns a very successful Mexican restaurant, famous for its borracho (drunk) bean soup. The fresh cilantro imparts a subtle, unique flavor.

The mashed potato has long been an addition to the Senate recipe but us Poe folks like our bean broth clear.

Poetrooper

Something else we picked up eating those borracho beans in San Antonio for so many years is that freshly fried and salted corn tortilla chips are an excellent substitute for cornbread.

Of course, ice cold cerveza is an absolute requirement. Nowadays, I’m with KOB all the way on Yuenglings.

Fyrfighter

It kills me that out here in Colorado I can’t get any of that nectar of the gods! and this damn chinese virus screwed my trip back thee last week, or I would have been drinking it by the pitcher!
Fuckin Chi-coms!

5th/77th FA

Damn Fyr, do we need to get a TransAm and a loaded big truck headed your way?

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

It’s bean a long time since I had bean soup. I should knock myself on the bean for saying that. Anyone remember this from Boot Camp: GI beans GI gravy, gee I wished I’d joined the Navy, hippo hoppo ring out the moppo, your left right left

Dennis - not chevy

From time to time the good Mrs will buy a bag of every type of bean they have in the store and use them all to make one soup. Aye, ’twill clean you out and cure what ails you.

Fyrfighter

Would it hurt your feelings again if i suggest adding some diced green chili’s Ed???

Fyrfighter

LOL, I do just seemed like a good opportunity to be a smart ass!

I go back on shift Monday, and hopefully find out if the LT. I relieved last week (and share a room with) has Covid.. then when I get home, I get t wear a mask till this crap is over, and I now get to sleep on a futon in our spare bedroom… so I have to make funnies when I can…
The humor of you all around here is one of the things that keeps me going, and I truly appreciate it.

Fyrfighter

Ooh, and my apologies to Mrs Ed

Poetrooper

As the old Mexican saying goes, “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Gringo.”

We’ve been going to this restaurant for almost forty years since it was Charlie and Mary Garcia’s little hole-in-the-wall, mom and pop place. Now it’s one of the biggest and most successful Mexican restaurants in San Antonio which has 5,000 of them.

Their bean soup accounted for much of that success.

EL CHAPARRAL RESTAURANT FAMOUS BORRACHO BEAN SOUP

* 1 pound raw pinto beans
* 1 gallon water
* Salt, to taste
* 1/4 pound bacon, chopped
* 1 medium onion, diced
* 6 jalapeños, chopped (or to taste)
* 2 tomatoes, chopped
* 1/2 bunch cilantro

Wash beans and pick over to remove any foreign material. Place in a pot with water and bring to boil. Simmer 1 hour, then add salt.

Meanwhile, in separate large stockpot, cook bacon until crisp.

Add onion, jalapeños, tomatoes and cilantro; cook several minutes until onions and jalapeños are soft.

When beans have cooked 1 hour, add them to pot with vegetables.

Reduce heat, cover, and simmer soup approximately 1 hour more, or until beans are tender.

Taste and add more salt as needed. Soup can be garnished with chopped cilantro if desired.

Makes about 15 servings

And see, they even use cilantro twice, for seasoning and as garnish. Mexicans chew on cilantro as breath freshener.

Poetrooper

Sorry it pasted screwy…

Poetrooper

If you’re in San Antonio and like Tex-Mex, don’t miss this place:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g55975-d517398-Reviews-El_Chaparral_Mexican-Helotes_Texas.html

Fyrfighter

Ooh, and my apologies to Mrs Ed

Stoutman

I prefer using ham hocks. You can find them in the commissary sometimes.

Poetrooper

Well dang! All this talk about bean soup and borracho beans got me to thinking about having those Hambean leftovers for dinner tonight. They’re warming now after I added some more onion and smoked ham.

Oh, Ed, tell your better half I threw in another handful of chopped cilantro, too. May add another can of Yuengling’s as well. Miz Poe’s frying up a fresh batch of corn tortilla chips as I write this.

Too bad all y’all can’t be here…

Tallywhagger

A teaspoon of oil in the soak water is enough to help the beans keep their skin on while cooking.

Pressure cooking works well, I do the ham hocks/pork shoulder or whatever is handy, first. The add the beans and cook at pressure or about 35 to 40 minutes.

If your potatoes were resting on top of the beans they are easy to retrieve along with a half of a cup of beans and broth; puree them and thicken up the broth.

Lately, I have been leaving the potatoes intact and just using the bean starch to thicken the soup–if needed.

OWB

All these recipes and talk about cooking – sounds like y’all are expecting us to eat every day now???

Well. OK. Got a beef roast in the freezer that is just begging to take a swim in the crockpot with some taters, onions and carrots. Still have some of those frozen yeast rolls that rise after they thaw out (Rhodes being the favored brand) that would go nicely with hunks of that roast & veg.

Maybe tomorrow. Got a hankering for some almost stacked enchiladas today. Only have flour tortillas on hand, so that is what will be used. And missed out getting the ingredients to make my own sauce, so will use a canned variety that is not great but better than none. (Old El Paso makes some pretty good sauce. Not as good as Pace. Or homemade.)

DocV

Eating Senate soup won’t make me think like a Senator will it?