Lamb chops, steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.
With a volcano of baked beans..
A tip for lamb shoppers at Makro, forget the frozen stuff it really is awful, go for fresh/chilled.
Also tried their frozen beef a while back, don't trust it, anything that's close to going off ends up frozen or mixed and minced.
The chop racks are generally right of the chiller top left.
I'm not in any food groups, but wouldn't buy discounted meat anywhere in Thailand unless it's going to be cooked same day.
This is the Baked BEAN thread not the Baked BEANS thread
I have recently bought 1 pack each (250 g) of white beans & black beans. I've googled and have seen recipes. However, I'm curious as to what are your recipe suggestions (btw, not really fond of baked beans - we get Hunts Pork & Beans here).
These were what I've found:
25+ Best Black Bean Recipes - Cooking With Black Beans
45 White Bean Recipes for Easy Soups, Salads, and Stews | Epicurious
Thanks in advance!
I had a hard shift last night so rewarded meself by breaking my 8:18 fasting and had breakfast.
Lasagne and beans. I was tired and the lasagne landed upside down on my plate.
Nice presentation, bet it tasted nice even though it's disguised as an omelette
I thought I was getting on OK with the Filipinos but today Ernesto recommended I eat his new breakfast recipe.
I've got used to stewed corned beef with onions, stewed tinned tuna with onions and even stewed tinned mackerel with onions...
But today it was what seemed to be chopped pork fat and gristle with chili... he must have run out of onions.
^ Looks like it will stick to the wall, which is where it would be heading if offered to me...
Not just big news on Teakdoor but also in The Economist
https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/09/02/why-the-baked-bean-Divides-America-and-Britain
Why The Baked Bean divides America & Britain
SCENE 1. Dakota Territory. Laura Ingalls and her family are shivering through the long, hard winter of 1880-81. They huddle in their little house on the prairie, wrapped in coats and shawls, close to the stove. Eventually food will become scarce. Until then there are beans, cooked slowly overnight by Ma. “She lifted the lid of the bubbling kettle and quickly popped in a spoonful of soda. The boiling beans roared, foaming up, but did not quite run over. ‘There’s a little bit of salt pork to put in them too,’ Ma said. Now and then she spooned up a few beans and blew on them. When their skins split and curled, she drained the soda-water from the kettle and filled it again with hot water. She put in the bit of fat pork.”
SCENE 2. London. The spring of 2020. Covid-19 has brought anything resembling normal life to a shuddering halt. Children are stuck at home, day in, day out. And day in, day out, they must be fed. Again and again and again. Some day, when this is all over, they will eat lunch at school. Until then, there are baked beans. They are less of a home-cooked affair than those of the Ingalls family. Emptied out of a tin, perhaps into a pan on the stove, more likely into a bowl in the microwave, they are an instant meal. Spiced up with Tabasco or Worcestershire sauce, thickened with a slick of melted cheese, accompanied by some buttery Marmite toast, they are a feast.
Many countries have a favoured bean stew. In Mexico frijoles borrachos are simmered with bacon and garlic and onions. Ewa riro are a speciality of the Yoruba part of Nigeria. In France a cassoulet may contain a rich variety of meats but it is at heart still a bowl of stewed beans. For the dish known specifically as baked beans, you must turn to America and Britain. They are two countries, divided by a common bean.
Before Ma Ingalls was baking her beans with salt pork, Native Americans were cooking them with deer or bear fat. They seem to have passed on their skills to early settlers. For the pious Pilgrims the dish was a boon. They weren’t allowed to cook on the Sabbath; a pot of beans, baked overnight, starting on a Saturday evening, solved the problem.
In America baked beans are now largely associated with New England – Boston is known as Beantown. The navy bean, a small white variety, is a popular choice for baking but soldier beans (named after the red splash on their skin which, if you squint, resembles a toy soldier), yellow-eye beans (favoured in Maine) and Jacob’s Cattle beans are plausible alternatives. The canned kind still include pork fat in the list of ingredients but a side of hot dogs makes up for the missing chunk of salt pork.
Somewhere along the way molasses became a traditional ingredient. It brings a welcome contrast to the savouriness of the cured pig. Even today American baked beans are an oddly sweet affair – at least to Britons, the other great lovers of baked beans. In Britain baked beans are also navy beans (known there as haricot) but they are bathed in a tomato sauce. They are still sweet, but less so than the American version, and the pork has disappeared entirely. Most importantly they are Heinz.
Other brands are available. Other brands are cheaper. Some would venture to say that other brands are better. Britons remain unconvinced. Around 60% of the beans bought in British shops are made by Heinz, according to Kantar Worldpanel, a market-research firm. So successful was the strap line “Beanz Meanz Heinz” in Britain that eventually the word Heinz did not even need to appear in adverts.
The “on-toast meal” never makes it into recipe books
Baked beans are now an unquestionable part of the British culinary canon despite, as Rachel Laudan, a food historian, points out, having no precedents there. She suggests that Britons’ enthusiastic adoption of this American dish may have its roots in their love for a category of meal which never makes it into recipe books: the “on-toast meal”. Baked beans, says Laudan, are a happy addition to scrambled eggs, cheese, sardines and mushrooms, all of which sit deliciously atop a slice of toast.
Such is the dominance of Heinz in the world of British baked beans that few would think to actually make the dish from scratch. The Heinz factory in Wigan in the north of England is the largest food-processing plant in Europe and rolls out some 3m cans of beans each day.
Those inspired to try their own hand at it might do better to pick the original American variety. They are time-consuming (beans are soaked overnight and then cooked for five to six hours) but undemanding when it comes to the actual cooking. The result will in no way resemble what Britons think of as baked beans. But that may be all to the good.
The assumption that to cook it yourself will inevitably lead to a better version of something normally produced in vast quantities in a factory is often well placed. But this ignores two of the great pleasures of food. First, the role of memory. Those who grew up eating Heinz baked beans might enjoy a slowly simmered pan of beans, subtly flavoured with garlic and real tomatoes, yet it’s unlikely to bring any Proustian sighs of joy (“Beans, beans, good for the heart…”). Secondly, more prosaically but perhaps more urgently these days, the ease with which a meal can be prepared. Poured straight from the tin to a bowl, there is little washing up after beans – even if you embellish them. They will last for years in the cupboard, ready to go in an instant. Sometimes a can really does have it all.■
Last edited by Happy As Larry; 05-09-2020 at 09:10 PM.
Not a meal I'm particularly proud of, but perfect for this thread I feel...
Three pages of beans and I'm still not inspired enough to put a can of beans into the shopping trolley. Carry on though. I'll keep checking, so who knows, a tin of Heinz may get on my plate yet.
Battle of the Beans
Coles own brand vs Heinz
No contest
Heinz are way better in every imaginable measurable dimension of beanliness
The only trouble is that they come in this weird tiny 300g tin
The coles beans are 420g
The correct size - yielding a perfect 210g portion per fry up
This evening's fry-up is garnished with a whole mini-tin of Heinz minus a few small spoons eaten prior to heating for the taste comparison - the usual half a tin would not be enough
Nice Loops.
I tried Branston baked beans the other day , they've gotta be up there in the top three along with Heinz .
No bacon again?
What's in the red mug? Looks too gloopy to be tea and I see no teabag left in the cup to stew?
I prefer Brooks beans to Heinz now... a firmer, less mushy bean and not so sweet. I think Heinz have become complacent and the competition has caught up.
I keep forgetting to buy bacon Mendip but the large pan is already a bit crowded with my merkin hash browns. I think bacon could present a logistical challenge.
Although I did get a bit carried away with excitement after not breaking 2 yolks and took a chance on a lucky 3rd... which did take up more egg-space than usual
I think that gloopiness on the surface is the ghostly mirage of a barely submerged PG Tips man-o-war
Coles beans used to be the worst offendors for sickly sweetness.
Heinz weigh in at something like 5g/100g sugar I think
Coles beans used to be a shocking 6.9g. I could not eat them. They have since dialled it down to under 5g and they are not so bad but Heinz are way tomatoey-er and generally flavoursome
I might buy all available brands and do a bean test one night.
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