Frijoles Charros

Kept deliberately brothy and eaten as a soup from a bowl, with everything cooked in the liquid rather than into it.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains a sausage whose meat the source does not name, chorizo, which is pork, pork.

Ingredients

• 450 g dried pinto beans
• 2 litres water
• 1 onion, halved, plus 1 chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 200 g streaky bacon, chopped
• 200 g chorizo, as on its own page, skinned and crumbled
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 3 serrano chillies, chopped
• a handful of coriander, chopped
• 2 teaspoons salt, at the end
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve

Method

1. IT IS KEPT DELIBERATELY BROTHY AND EATEN AS A SOUP FROM A BOWL. That is the whole distinction from every other bean dish here, and it means the liquid is never reduced and never mashed. The beans are cooked in two litres of water and stay in roughly two litres of water: there should be enough broth that a ladleful is mostly liquid with beans suspended in it, eaten with a spoon alongside grilled meat. The bacon, chorizo, tomato and chilli are all cooked separately and then tipped INTO that broth, so their fat and flavour disperse through the liquid rather than being cooked down into a thick mass.
2. THE BACON AND CHORIZO ARE FRIED FIRST AND THE FAT GOES IN WITH THEM. Rendered in a frying pan until the bacon is crisp and the chorizo has caught, and the whole panful -- fat included -- is poured into the beans. That fat sitting in beads on the surface of the broth is what the dish looks like and tastes of; drained off, it is a tomato bean soup.
3. THE TOMATO AND CHILLI ARE COOKED IN THAT SAME FAT BEFORE THEY GO IN. Softened for eight minutes in the bacon pan so the tomato loses its water and raw edge. Dropped straight into the broth raw, the tomato stays sharp and the broth tastes thin.
4. IT GOES IN AT THE END AND SIMMERS ONLY TWENTY MINUTES TOGETHER. Long enough for the broth to take everything up, short enough that the bacon has not gone soft and the coriander is still green. An hour together and it is a muddy stew.
5. NOTHING IS MASHED AND NOTHING IS BLENDED. The temptation with any pot of beans is to crush a ladleful against the side to thicken it. That is the right move for refried beans and the wrong one here -- the clear-ish broth is the dish.
6. The beans rinsed and put in a pot with the 2 litres of water and the onion HALVES. NO SALT.
7. Simmered 1 HOUR 30 MINUTES, topped up only with BOILING water, until tender.
8. The bacon fried in a dry pan 6 MINUTES until the fat runs and the edges crisp.
9. The crumbled chorizo added and cooked 6 MINUTES more until it has caught in places.
10. The CHOPPED onion, garlic and chillies added to the same pan and cooked 5 minutes, then the tomatoes added and cooked 8 MINUTES until collapsed.
11. The ENTIRE panful, FAT INCLUDED, poured into the beans.
12. Simmered together 20 MINUTES ONLY.
13. The 2 teaspoons of salt stirred in and tasted.
14. CHECKED: there should be plenty of BROTH -- a ladleful mostly liquid. Boiling water added if it has tightened.
15. Nothing mashed, nothing blended, nothing drained.
16. The coriander stirred in off the heat.
17. Ladled into bowls as a soup, with tortillas.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes