Substitute for Canned Baked Beans in Barbie's BBQ Beans?


 

Rita Y

TVWBB Emerald Member
Kevin, Dave and I would like to cook the beans for the BARBIE'S DOWN SOUTH BBQ SMOKED BAKED BEANS RECIPE from scratch.

Could you suggest a baked bean recipe with your special touch, that we could substitute for the canned beans, that would work in the Barbie's recipe? I know it would be much better. Don't mean to insult you by asking you to duplicate a canned product.
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The ingredient label on Bush's Original Baked Beans states:
Prepared white beans, water, brown sugar, sugar, salt, mustard (vinegar, water, mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika), bacon, modified food starch, onion powder, caramel color, spices, garlic powder, natural flavor.

The 7-pound, 5-ounce (3.32 kg) can contains 26 (1/2-cup) servings, so the volume should be 13 cups.

Thanks,
Rita
 
I would approach this from a different angle. The ingredients in Barbie's are essentially the same as in Bush's writ large. In other words, though the recipe starts with Bush's, the additional ingredients are prety much the same as what is already in the can.

So, that said, I would not try to recreate Bush's at first, but would instead make the beans from scratch, plain, using navy beans, though Great Northerns or cannellinis would work too. Cook the beans till just tender (in a pot or pressure cooker) then use them in place of the Bush's. To me, this approach would likely result in a better finish because the beans will be less sweet (Bush's are already sweet and the additional sweeteners in Barbie's just add to that). If desired, one could up the sweeteners and other flavors, as necessary, near the time when the beans are finishing.

There are a couple procedural details I would change. There is little in the way of flavor development (in terms of depth) that occurs if one simply combines everything in the pot, as directed in the recipe, and cooks thus. This might work okay using Bush's because they've covered some of this in the process they use to make their beans. However, if using cooked dried beans in place of the Bush's, one needs to go for depth early on.

By doing the following, I think it is likely that one could make the beans pretty much as written, but using cooked dried beans instead, and also avoid the need to make ingredient additions near the end.

Cook the dried beans till just tender adding salt near the end of the cooking process to that they are slightly seasoned. Meanwhile, increase the dried mustard to 4 tsp and mix it with an equal amount of water. Allow to sit 10 min then whisk in 1 tblsp apple cider vinegar; reserve.

In the pot will you will later use for the beans (after the dried ones have cooked), add the bacon and render its fat over med-low heat, stirring often. Using a slotted spoon, remove the bacon from the pan and reserve. Finely chop the onions and add them to the bacon fat in the pot. Increase the temp to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, till the onions are soft and just beginning to caramelize in spots, about 20 min or so.

Add the diced peppers to the pot and increase the heat a little. (Consider adding 1/2 a green bell or Anaheim pepper--minced--as well.) Cook 2-3 min, stirring constantly.


Run 3 cloves of garlic through a press. Increase the heat to high, wait a min, then add the garlic. Stir constantly and cook till the garlic is very fragrant, about 30 secs. Immediately remove the pot from the heat and stir in the reserved mustard-vinegar mixture and the reserved bacon. Stir in the BBQ sauce, black pepper and Chimayo.

When the dried beans are just tender, measure out the correct mount and add them to the pot along with some of their water. Add the pulled pork, the syrup, molasses and brown sugar. Add the hot sauces, stir, then adjust salt, if needed. Adjust liquid by adding more of the bean cooking water if necessary.

Cook/smoke the beans as directed in the recipe, stirring periodically, and adding water if necessary to maintain/achieve the desired consistency.

If necessary (and I think it might well not be, or perhaps just on a small scale) adjust sweetener(s) and spicing.
 
Oh, yes! Just what I've been looking for. I'll be trying this approach very shortly, and I know that this will help Dave out too. Thanks, Kevin!

Rita
 
Kevin - thanks! I'm going to give this a try next weekend. Any suggestions on a substitute for dry mustard? I can't get it here in Spain :-( I'll pick some up from a supermarket when in Atlanta on a business trip next month but I'd hate to have to wait until then to prepare this recipe.

Dave
 
Use a heaping tablespoon of prepared mustard out of a jar. I would think that would be available, no?
 
No problem getting that. I live on the northern coast of Spain not too far from the French border and we have a nice selection of Dijon mustards.

Dave
 
Kevin - in order to scale the recipe properly how would I estimate the pounds/kilos of dried beans compared to the weights of the cans given in the recipe? I imagine the canned weight that was given is not dry weight so it also includes the weight of the liquid.

Dave
 
If it helps any, my notes say that one pound of dried beans makes 5 1/2 cups cooked, drained navy beans. Some beans absorb more water than others and I suppose it depends on the size of the beans too.

Rita

7/4/09: Ed. yield of 1 pound dried navy beans.
 
Dave-- I'd go by volume. As I think Rita pointed out in the recipe thread, a can of Bush's should be 13 cups. I'd cook 2-2.5 lbs of beans (or a kilo) and measure out about 13 cups of beans plus liquid and use that. Once you have done it one time and made any necessary adjustments you'll know whether this works out. I think it should.
 
Thanks Rita and Kevin. I'm going to try a half batch first and will let you know how it turns out.

Dave
 
Couldn't wait for the weekend and I did them up today. What can I say about this recipe that hasn't already been said in the original thread? Two things: a) baked beans will never be the same after this - the bar has definitely been risen; b) after doing them from scratch, even if I could get my hands on canned beans I would no longer consider it an option. I've never had Bush's so I can't compare the result against using theirs but sincerely, doing it from scratch really isn't much more work (more time yes) and I have 100% control over the additives.

Thanks Rita and Kevin for all the info. Wouldn't have been able to do it without you.

Just a couple of notes on the process that I followed:
- I did and overnight soak of the dried beans then a nice slow cook on the stovetop.
- I decided to add the salt right at the beginning of the cook
- 500g of dried white beans (just a tad bit bigger than navy beans) gave me a little more than 8 cups (volume) of cooked beans

One thing I'll try on the next batch is to throw a little bit of cabbage in with the beans for the initial cook. Since I'll whip up some coleslaw cabbage will be on hand and it tends to give a nice flavour to white beans when cooked in the traditional Spanish style. Not sure it will do anything for the end result of this recipe as the other flavours just might drown it out, but it can't hurt.

Rita - since you wanted to try this from scratch as well I can now tell you from experience that Kevin's guidance is spot on. Go for it!

Dave
 
I've heard that adding salt at the beginning of the cooking process will toughen beans.

Does anyone ever make beans from scratch entirely in the smoker? Is it doable? I've got a maple cider baked bean recipe that I'd love to try this way.
 
It is a myth that adding salt early to beans will toughen them. The only reason I suggested adding near the end, above, was to minimize chances of a salty finish due to the otheringredients being added later, and due to reduction. You can go with the salt addition early if you'd like. (I do for beans that will be done--i.e., removed from the heat--when tender, rather than combined with additional ingredients for longer cooking after tender is achieved.)

What you don't want to add to beans early on is anything acidic.

I've cooked beans from scratch in kettles. It isn't something I do by choice as I prefer to make additions of other ingredients and monitor the liquid level as I go (necessitating lid removal), but you certainly can.
 
Preparing an "alubiada" (bean stew) is very traditional where I live in the north of Spain. I'd never heard the myth about salt toughening the beans if added at the beginning and it's always done in that manner here. Naturally it's not a lot of salt as typical bean stew also has chorizo, some ribs, panceta (like bacon, but thicker) so it's going to draw salt from those as well during the cooking process.

I'm not a chemist but I would think that the longer the time the beans are in contact with the salt would facilitate starch release from the beans helping to naturally thicken the broth. Any thoughts on that Kevin?
 

 

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