Paisano: Barbequed Beans

Summers are marked, in my mind, by a triptych of summer grilling sessions. The first panel is centered on Memorial Day, the official opening of barbequing season. This panel offers scenes of earlier efforts, when a planned late-April meal of grilled rack of lamb might turn into a cold, blustery, and miserable afternoon on the patio before admitting defeat and retreating to finish the lamb in the oven. But it also includes such treats as salads made with the spring's first lettuce, grilled asparagus, and strawberries.

The last panel is Labor Day, the true harvest celebration when everything is in season. Fresh tomatoes for slicing, corn for grilling, perhaps fire-roasted Cornish hens or even simple Steaks Florentine, and peach cobbler doled out in large bowls with unwhipped and unsweetened heavy cream.

There would always be a few more days spent with fire and beer, wine or cocktail on the patio or porch following Labor Day - good days - but still, at best, a lingering goodbye before the grill and smoker were wiped down for the last time, the ashes scrubbed out, and the covers pulled over them until the next season.

In the center, the place of honor, is the 4th of July. Could our forefathers, foremothers, or foreskins have picked a better date for a national holiday? First, unlike most holidays in this country, the date doesn't vary. It is the fourth. If it falls on a Wednesday then by God you get Wednesday off (unless you work at 7/11). As much as I love long weekends, I really don't approve of moving holidays - and don't get me started on Easter, which wanders like a drunken sailor from date to date.

Smack dab in the middle of summer, the weather on the 4th is usually (albeit not always) great for grilling. It's too hot, but that's what cold beverages, pools, patio umbrellas, and breezes are for. Tomatoes are usually beginning to arrive so gazpacho should be on the menu. Summer squash, perfect for grilling, hasn't yet become anathema with 4 by 18 inch zucchinis, and if you're lucky you might find some early corn and melons at a farm stand.

But regardless of the occasion, a common side dish when grilling or barbequing is barbequed beans. Smokey, pungent, sweet, and tomatoey, it's easy to imagine how they should taste and almost impossible to find beans that actually taste that way. I found it's even harder to make them, but this recipe comes pretty close. It requires a smoker and a few racks of pork ribs to accomplish perfectly, but it probably works in the oven - though you'll not get the intense smoke.

Barbequed Beans
Serves 8.

1 lb dried, dark pinto beans
1 tbsp salt
1 smoked ham hock
1 onion - peeled and cut into eighths
6 oz thick cut bacon - cooked until slightly crisp and cut into lardons
1/2 onion - diced and sautéed in bacon fat
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c molasses
1/2 c barbeque sauce
1 1/2 c canned, plain tomato sauce
1 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp ground mace
2 tbsp chili powder
salt and black pepper to taste

Put the beans, ham hock, onion quarters and 6 cups of water in a soup pot. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 2 1/2 hours. Drain beans, keeping about 1 cup of cooking liquid. Pick the meat off the ham hock and add back to the beans.

In the meantime, cook the bacon in a skillet and drain most of the fat, keeping about 2 tablespoons. Sauté the diced onion in the bacon fat until the onion begins to brown. Set aside.

In an aluminum-foil roasting pan, combine the beans and all other ingredients. (Everything to this point can be done a day in advance.)

If you don't have a smoker or don't want to use it, the beans should be cooked for about 3 more hours, uncovered, in 225F oven. But if, like me, you have a barrel smoker, then once your fire is going place a rack in the middle of the smoker (this is directly over the water pan in my smoker - and do fill the water pan). Set the beans, uncovered, on this rack, then add the top rack and set whatever meat you're planning on smoking on it. I did ribs, but even turkey or chickens would be all right. The idea is that as the meat cooks any juices drip into the beans adding still more flavor. Smoke for at least 3 hours and 5 to 6 is better.

The beans came out tender, but mostly whole (no lumpy mush) with a distinct smoke flavor. Absolutely delicious, a complete success.