You know how it is when you just plain crave baked beans.
This rich baked beans recipe will satisfy your cravings and throws in healthy sweet potatoes to boot.
And, then there is the complex smoky flavor of chipotle peppers. What’s not to love here?
Chipotles, by the way, are simply smoked and dried jalapeños. That was news to me. Apparently, this preparation technique dates back to the Aztecs who learned that smoking the peppers (like over a fire, people!) overcame the tendency of the thick-skinned jalapeños to rot when using normal drying methods. The resulting smoked chipotle peppers were then used in complicated ceremonial meals. A 1571 journal, for example, described the preparation of a sauce that made liberal use of chipotle chiles. The sauce contained a mixture of chiles, tomatoes, nuts, pumpkin seeds, spices, chocolate and cornmeal. Yum! Sounds very much like a recipe for modern-day mole. (Etiquette at Aztec galas was pretty interesting, too. It was traditional before an Aztec meal was served to offer guests flowers which they were expected to rub on their heads, hands and necks after which each guest would drop a little food on the floor as an offering to the god Tlaltecuhtli.)
Fortunately for us all, chipotles continue to be a popular ingredient in a number of spicy foods and, for some gourmands, the pepper is considered a delicacy to be savored. The Austin Sun Newspaper, for example, printed an adoring piece about chipotles in which they described the pepper using much the same terminology that wine connoisseurs use to describe a fine wine: “The taste profile is smoky and sweet, exhibiting subtle tobacco and chocolate flavors with a Brazil nut finish, with deep, complex heat; the piquancy is rounded and slowly fading.” I don’t know about you, but I think that’s funny. Then again, I find the pretentious wine notes that appear on wine bottles pretty funny, too.
Today, chipotles are often sold packed in a tomato-vinegar-spice sauce called adobo, but you also can find them au naturel (see below).
This recipe is based on one of Martha Rose Shulman’s recipes from the New York Times. I’ve sweetened it up with extra honey and molasses, added a couple extra onions and switched out the red beans for Rancho Gordo’s Marcella beans–something I’ve been doing a lot lately in bean dishes. To say that I’m hooked on Marcellas is a vast understatement. Marcellas are the Tesla of white beans in my book.
Oh, by the way…if you are invited to my next party, I plan to have my guests rub their heads with flowers Aztec-style. Sounds like a great ice-breaker. We’ll also drop some food on the floor for Tlaltecuhtli Juliet, Blue Cayenne’s Chief Quality Officer.
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Here is a link to the original Martha Rose Shulman recipe from which this recipe was adapted: NYT: Baked Beans with Sweet Potatoes and Chipotles.
