You Need Smoked Ham & Andouille Sausage For Unforgettable Red Beans & Rice

Delish

A Creole classic with creamy red beans stewed in smoked ham and andouille sausage, flavored with the holy trinity of vegetables, then served over steamed rice.

Transcript

00:00 Hey everybody, it's Brooke,

00:01 and I'm in Delish Kitchen Studios.

00:03 Now, there are a few things that come to mind

00:05 when I think of Creole cuisine.

00:07 You've got etouffee, you've got gumbo,

00:09 you've got jambalaya,

00:10 but my personal favorite is the dish that does double duty

00:13 as both a side or a main, and that's red beans and rice.

00:17 It's got tender, creamy red beans and smoky sausage and ham

00:21 that give this dish such an intense depth of flavor.

00:24 One bite, and you'll swear you're on Bourbon Street.

00:27 It's super easy, I'm gonna show you how to do it.

00:29 First things first, you need red beans.

00:32 I know what you're thinking, I could just grab kidney beans.

00:34 No, you cannot.

00:36 Okay, you could, you could do that,

00:38 but it won't be real red beans and rice.

00:40 I've seen a lot of red beans and rice dishes

00:42 that call for kidney beans, which again, is okay,

00:45 but a red bean is much smaller than a kidney bean,

00:49 and you'll get a much more tender and creamy texture

00:52 from a red bean than you will from a kidney bean.

00:54 What you're looking for is called a small red bean.

00:56 They're also called Central American red beans.

01:00 Either one is fine.

01:01 The go-to brand in the South is Camellia Beans.

01:04 Now, unfortunately, I'm in New York,

01:06 so I wasn't able to find Camellia Beans,

01:08 but when I was tweeting about developing

01:10 this red beans and rice recipe,

01:11 they responded to my tweet, and they were so excited for me.

01:14 So for this recipe, you only need a pound of small red beans

01:19 and what you're gonna do is soak them at least eight hours.

01:22 I like to do it overnight.

01:23 If you're gonna soak them for more than eight hours,

01:25 you wanna throw 'em in the refrigerator

01:26 so they don't start smelling funky on your countertop,

01:29 but before you soak them, you wanna pick through the beans

01:31 to find any broken beans, or honestly,

01:34 sometimes there's small rocks in dried beans,

01:36 so you wanna make sure you get those out

01:38 before you put your soaking water in.

01:39 Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and dump these in our container.

01:42 I'm using a really big container

01:43 'cause you need about 10 cups of water per pound of beans,

01:47 so you wanna make sure you have plenty of room

01:48 to add your water.

01:49 Before you put your beans in the refrigerator

01:55 to sit overnight, add about two tablespoons of salt

01:57 to your soaking liquid.

01:59 I'm gonna cover this up and stick it in the refrigerator

02:02 for at least eight hours so that these beans can soak,

02:05 and the importance of soaking beans

02:06 is so that they cook more tender and more evenly,

02:10 and the skins won't pop off and burst everywhere all crazy

02:13 like they would if you didn't soak them.

02:15 I've got a pound of red beans here

02:16 that I soaked yesterday, obviously.

02:18 They're not done that quickly,

02:20 but these got soaked last night,

02:22 and I'm gonna go ahead and drain the bean water off.

02:24 A good way to tell if your beans are done soaking

02:33 is that they'll get nice and wrinkly and pruney like this,

02:36 the same way your fingers would

02:37 if they've been in water too long,

02:39 and that's a good sign that you'll get a nice, tender bean

02:41 after you cut them.

02:42 For the first cook on the beans,

02:47 grab yourself a pot that's at least five to six quarts.

02:50 You're gonna add the beans to the pot.

02:52 Cover them with about two quarts of cold, fresh water,

02:55 and you're gonna add half that onion you just chopped,

02:58 two bay leaves, and you're gonna crank the heat to high

03:01 and bring the beans to a boil.

03:03 Once your beans get to a boil,

03:04 you'll reduce the heat to medium

03:05 and let them cook for about an hour.

03:07 You wanna stir it occasionally

03:09 just to make sure everything is cooking evenly

03:11 and no beans are sticking anywhere in your pot.

03:13 When the beans have about 15 minutes left

03:15 on their cooking time, you wanna take a wooden spoon

03:18 and start mashing some of the beans on the side of the pot.

03:22 What that's gonna do is help create the level of thickness

03:24 that you want for your red beans,

03:26 and it's gonna turn into a nice gravy-ish sort of texture.

03:30 I've said a lot about beans,

03:31 but it wouldn't be red beans

03:33 if the rice didn't come on the side.

03:34 So let's talk about rice for a second.

03:36 I love using a nice, long grain white rice

03:39 to pair with my red beans, and quick story time,

03:44 I'm actually not that great at cooking rice.

03:47 If you tell anybody, I'll deny it,

03:48 but it's not my strong suit.

03:50 So I like to use a rice cooker

03:52 'cause it does all the work for me

03:54 and I don't have to second-guess myself.

03:56 With a lot of rice cookers,

03:57 they'll list the measurements on the side

04:00 so you know exactly how much liquid

04:01 you're supposed to put in

04:03 per however many scoops of rice you add to the rice cooker.

04:06 So for however many little scoopies of rice

04:09 I put in the rice cooker,

04:10 I'm gonna fill it up to that corresponding line with liquid.

04:14 I like to use vegetable broth or chicken broth

04:16 when I make rice 'cause it adds

04:17 just a little bit extra flavor

04:19 than using just plain water,

04:20 and I love adding flavor wherever possible.

04:23 While our beans are simmering away,

04:35 I'm gonna start prepping the main source of flavor

04:37 for the red beans, and that is two different kinds of pork.

04:41 We love multiple kinds of pork in the same dish.

04:44 In this case, we have andouille sausage and smoked ham.

04:47 You have to put sausage in red beans and rice,

04:50 and it has to be andouille.

04:51 Please don't use another kind of sausage.

04:53 Honestly, if you're gonna use kielbasa, you can.

04:57 Just don't tell anybody about it.

04:58 Pretend like it's andouille

04:59 and add a little bit of extra spice to it.

05:02 Just keep it a secret.

05:03 Once our beans are ready to go,

05:05 we're going to slice the andouille

05:07 and we're going to dice the ham into about 1/2-inch pieces

05:10 just so they're big enough to fit on the spoon.

05:12 The key to a delicious red beans and rice

05:15 is building layers and layers of flavor.

05:17 A good way to do that is by sauteing your ham

05:20 and your andouille sausage in a skillet

05:22 before it goes into the pot.

05:24 I'm gonna do the ham first,

05:25 and we're just gonna add a tablespoon of oil to the pan,

05:27 let it get nice and hot, saute the ham, add it to the pot,

05:30 and then we're gonna repeat that exact same thing

05:33 with the andouille sausage.

05:34 If you see the bottom of your skillet

05:35 start to get nice and brown and crusty like that,

05:38 don't fret, it's not burning.

05:40 It's just flavor building up on the bottom.

05:42 That's fond, we all know fond.

05:44 We're gonna get it out a little bit later

05:46 once we saute the vegetables in the same thing.

05:49 When I was thinking about the development of this recipe,

05:55 I had to go straight to the source

05:57 for all things Creole cuisine,

05:59 and that, of course, for me,

06:00 is the late, great Chef Leah Chase.

06:02 But when I was looking at her recipe,

06:03 I was thinking, how can I put my own spin on this

06:06 and really make this my own?

06:07 And to do that, I decided to add

06:09 the holy trinity of Southern vegetables

06:12 that is bell pepper, onions, and celery.

06:14 Holy trinity is the base of a lot of Southern dishes,

06:17 a lot of Cajun and Creole dishes,

06:19 and it's essentially like a Southern mirepoix.

06:21 So instead of carrots,

06:22 you throw the green bell pepper in there,

06:24 and that's really because bell peppers

06:26 grow so abundantly in the South,

06:27 and they're easier to find.

06:29 Now that we've got our andouille and smoked ham

06:31 already in the pot,

06:32 I'm gonna go ahead and chop up this bell pepper,

06:35 a little bit of celery, some garlic, and some thyme,

06:38 and we're gonna throw all those in the pot

06:40 and let them simmer for a little bit longer.

06:42 Now that we've got all that wonderful flavor

06:44 coaxed out of our andouille and our smoked ham

06:47 from a quick saute,

06:48 we're gonna use the flavor that's left in the pan

06:50 and the oil that's left in the pan

06:51 to saute up our holy trinity of vegetables,

06:54 and we're gonna add that to the pot

06:56 along with a cup of chicken broth.

06:58 The chicken broth is gonna deglaze the pan

07:00 to make sure we get all those lovely flavor bits.

07:03 See, guys, I was telling the truth.

07:07 The liquid from the vegetables

07:08 is already getting to the bottom of the pan.

07:10 And now we can see the pan again.

07:14 We've got our vegetables all nice and soft.

07:17 They've been cooking for about four or five minutes.

07:19 Next, we're gonna add some garlic and some chopped thyme.

07:22 Then we're gonna deglaze the whole skillet

07:24 with a cup of chicken broth

07:25 and add the whole thing to our pot of beans.

07:27 This smells so good,

07:37 and I wish I could eat it right now,

07:39 but we need to let this simmer for about 30 more minutes

07:42 on medium, medium-low, and then it'll be ready to eat.

07:46 We'll just spoon it over some white rice that we steamed,

07:49 top it with a little bit of parsley, and enjoy.

07:51 One quick tip,

07:52 if your beans start to get a little bit too thick,

07:54 feel free to add like half a cup of chicken broth

07:57 till they get to the consistency that you want.

07:59 (upbeat music)

08:02 There's just a flavor symphony going on

08:10 in these red beans, y'all.

08:11 There's the andouille,

08:12 which has given it that perfect amount of heat.

08:14 I can taste the green bell pepper, the celery, the onions,

08:17 the thyme, and the garlic, but nothing's overwhelming.

08:21 It's all super balanced.

08:22 Now, like I said, red beans and rice is great as a side dish,

08:25 but it's also a main.

08:27 Beans and rice are a complete protein,

08:29 and then you got your extra proteins in there.

08:31 So this is a whole meal in itself.

08:33 But if you do wanna serve it as a side dish,

08:35 it would go great next to some fried chicken,

08:37 some ribs, whatever you have, honestly.

08:40 And y'all, you cannot have a good classic Southern meal

08:44 without a glass of sweet tea.

08:46 If you want more Cajun, Creole, Southern recipes

08:50 just like this one, keep it right here at delish.com.

08:53 (upbeat music)

08:55 (upbeat music)

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