I get these bizarre obsessions once in a while and the making of the dish being obsessed over suddenly takes priority over everything else in my to-cook list. Baked beans suddenly became this latest dish, due in part to my having a large bottle of maple syrup from Toronto. The recipe below isn’t for the true Boston baked beans (for that, substitute the maple syrup for molasses and even then that might bring up arguments) but instead is more like a Québécois feves au lard and is just as delicious.
I’d rarely cooked beans from dry, usually using canned ones when cooking. However, these beans were tender in a much shorter amount of time than I expected – only about 2-3 hours on the stove. I’ve always loved baked beans in this style and they’re one thing (amongst many) from North America that I do miss. While all the cans of baked beans in the UK are full of tomatoes and sugar, there are lots of variants available over the pond – in tomato sauce, with pork, with cocktail hot dogs, with molasses, with maple syrup, with brown sugar, in barbecue sauce. I do love them all but, for me, while I’m happy to mix and match the sweeteners, melt-in-your-mouth, slow cooked bacon is a must. The beans from this recipe were sweet but not too sweet and wonderfully porky.
But it wasn’t just the baked beans I wanted; I had to have the entire bean supper. Baked beans are very traditional in New England and baked bean suppers are often held as fundraisers for churches and other public services; a great description of both can be found here at the Maine Farmhouse Journal – they are feasts! Along with the baked beans themselves, hot dogs, bread, salads and desserts are served. The traditional bread to have alongside is a unique steamed brown bread but I opted instead to serve a Bostonian baked bun, the Parker House roll (recipe in my next post). It was a real stick-to-your-ribs meal, perfect for a cold night or just big appetites!
The leftovers keep very well too. When cooked together with sliced frankfurters/hot dogs, you end up with beanies and weenies (aka franks and beans) – I love its name.
Maple Baked Beans
serves 6-8, depending on appetites.
500g dried beans (I used flageolet but haricot, cannellini or kidney beans would also work)
a 400g chunk of salt pork or bacon (I used a Polish boczek), cut into smaller pieces
60 ml maple syrup
1.5 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tbsps dark rum (optional)
1 large onion, chopped
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves
1 tbsp dried mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper
The night before, dump your beans into a large pot/casserole, cover with lots of cold water and leave to soak overnight.
The next day, drain the water and add the onion, bacon, cloves, mustard, maple syrup, sugar, Worcester sauce and rum, if using. Add water to cover and set the whole thing over medium-high heat. When it starts boiling, turn the heat to low and leave to simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 2-3 hours, until the beans are tender.
Preheat your oven to 160 Celsius. After the 2-3 hours on the stove (until the beans are tender), season with salt and pepper and then pop it into the oven without a lid on. A crust should have formed after an hour and it’ll be ready to serve. To cook it the entire time in the oven, you’ll want to cover it and place it in there for about 5 hours prior to removing the lid. You’ll also want to check periodically to make sure it isn’t drying out.
Sat, 10 Mar, 2012 at 00:50
love baked beans, my mom’s version uses linguisa (sp?) what we call portuguese sausage in hawaii 🙂 your dinner looks wonderful!
Sat, 10 Mar, 2012 at 01:42
I love this recipe. I’m thinking of pairing it with sourdough toast…. Cheap and gourmet food. I don’t do cheap and nasty apart from an occasional big mac or KFC.
When’s the cookbook coming out? Seriously I have a random collection of scribbled notes and saved pages. 🙂
Sat, 10 Mar, 2012 at 09:26
Hey! I’m gonna defend baked beans in the UK. You might not be able to get the same variety as in N.America but you can get different flavours such as BBQ, smokey BBQ and curry. And then there are those cans with pork sausages and other bits and bobs in them.
BTW, your beans look damn good!
Sat, 10 Mar, 2012 at 14:13
These sound fantastic, and it’s one of those dishes I keep saying I am going to make, particularly in the current climate.This might be the recipe push I needed to get on and do it, before the summer comes and no one fancies a dish being on for 3 hours!
Sat, 10 Mar, 2012 at 18:07
I got absolutely obsessed with baked beans for a while – the Boston variety. SO rich and satisfying!
Sun, 11 Mar, 2012 at 08:35
Yay to beanies and weenies! Heh!
Sun, 11 Mar, 2012 at 09:26
so this is proper baked beans! my impression of them has always been the sweet tomato-ey can you reach for in desperation. this looks nothing like that!
Sun, 11 Mar, 2012 at 10:58
Oh, wow. This looks utterly gorgeous. I’m a huge baked bean fan but I rely on the canned ones and I’m running out of ways to zazz them up — there’s only so many combinations of sweetener, flavoured vinegar and Worcestershire Sauce you can work with! Thanks for posting this, I’m looking forward to trying it.
Mon, 12 Mar, 2012 at 13:05
kat: Oh, I do love Portuguese sausage and need to start looking out for where I can buy it!
Robert: Aw shucks, unfortunately, the full-time job is currently taking up much of my time but y’know…still in the imaginary stage!
Mr Noodles: 😀 I couldn’t find the BBQ in my local supermarkets!
Helen T: Good call – it’s starting to warm up so get all that long, slow cooking out of the way now!
Helen: So much better than what comes out of a can!
Kavey: Yup, I love their name too!
Shu Han: Yes, banish thoughts of the tomatoey stuff.
Amy: Yeah, make em from scratch and with pork!
Tue, 13 Mar, 2012 at 13:59
[…] method, also favoured by Monarch Bakery. These soft, buttery buns were perfect for mopping up the baked beans in my last post and in case there’s not enough butter in them for you, they’re awfully […]
Tue, 27 Mar, 2012 at 05:29
And here I am an English woman living in Vancouver missing the tomato baked beans of my youth. Heinz beans and frankfurters was a favourite tea growing up. I guess those childhood tastes will always mean comfort.
Mon, 2 Apr, 2012 at 11:30
Gillian: 😀 One does turn to what one had as a child! I certainly don’t mind the Heinz tomato ones but I do love pork and beans more! Can you not get the Heinz kind in Vancouver? My mother used to buy them for my father who missed them from his time in the UK.