Breakfast Bowl of Beans

I love beans. In fact the whole B family is mad about the little buggers. Thanks to the post I wrote for All Over Albany recently my chest freezer has been full of Cuban black beans, Southern black-eyed peas, and Indian chana masala. But those stocks had started to dwindle and I dragged out my bean pot once again.

This time it was going to be white beans, great northern to be precise.

At the time I started soaking them, I had no idea exactly what they would become. All I knew is that they would be seasoned with bacon. It was only once I started cooking that the dish began to transform into something resembling breakfast.

I still had some of Albany Jane’s bacon in my freezer and it wasn’t getting any younger. So to build flavor into my beans I started with smoky bacon fat. The bacon was cut into lardons and placed in a cool dry sauté pan over medium high heat. There the bacon crisped up, some of the fat rendered out, and some lovely brown bits were left on the bottom of the pan.

As this was going on, I drained and rinsed the dried beans that soaked over night, and returned them to the pot. I covered them with fresh cold water, and started to bring the beans to a boil. That was a mistake, but not a fatal one. It was a technique borrowed from the Cuban black beans and resulted in a bit of a soupier end result.

For this preparation I should have drained the beans, and let them sit in a colander until the aromatics were cooked. Next time.

Removing the bacon so it wouldn’t get in the way, I added a tablespoon of olive oil to the bacon drippings, followed by two finely diced medium onions. The onions helped to scrape up the flavorful fond, and absorb some of the bacon flavor so it would be more present throughout the dish.

When the onions became translucent, I added two stalks of finely diced organic celery, and two crushed cloves of garlic. Once those all cooked down a bit, I added some larger chunks of peeled organic carrots. Mrs. Fussy had requested this bit, and she was very happy to have them, but left to my own devices I would have left them out.

Had I not already started the beans simmering in the pot, I would have dumped the soaked (but still super firm beans) into the vegetables with the bacon. Then I could have sautéed the beans with the vegetables and bacon to coat them all with flavor. Instead, I tried to meld the flavor of the two components by sautéing a cup of beans into the veggies before returning everything to the simmering pot.

At this point, most of the work was done, but then I got to thinking. Bacon goes really well with eggs. But how do I work eggs into this bean dish?

And then it occurred to me: carbonara.

Now one cannot make carbonara with beans, nor should one make it with bacon. But the flavor profile of the dish mixes cured pork with Parmigiano-Reggiano and egg. So I decided to infuse the beans with the flavor of the cheese by throwing in about a quarter cup of Parm-Reg rinds I keep around for such emergencies. And I decided to serve the beans in bowls topped with a poached egg!

Mrs. Fussy demands some starch, and somehow beans don’t count. So served on the side were pieces of toast for dipping into the yolky, bacony and beany bowl.

It was very comforting on a cold winter night. And it was kind of like eating breakfast for dinner. But as leftovers, these could be very easily heated up on the stove while a pan of water is brought to a simmer to poach an egg. Sure, you may end up with two dirty pans in the sink. But coming home to them will simply remind you of the lovely breakfast you enjoyed, which could easily have been the best part of your day.