Jammy "Baked" Beans
Jammy in the literal sense — plus a shopping tip for canned beans
After recently dipping my toe in jam making — which yielded a reasonably sized stash of Tomato-Ancho Jam from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough’s new book Cold Canning — I started thinking about the flavor of baked beans.
I can’t remember eating them since I was a kid, but I recall them being sweet, suspended in an intensely flavored, slow-cooked sauce that was reduced down to almost — well, almost a jam.
Once I’d already done the work of building flavor by making my jam, it seemed like it could be a future shortcut in something like baked beans. This particular tomato-ancho one has the sweetness you’d expect, but also some savory aspects you wouldn’t, and that would be a good thing, matching the sweet and savory aspects of a dish like baked beans.
I’ve been so pleased with this, such an easy recipe with a familiar-but-new flavor. These beans can just sit and simmer for as long as you need them to, but they really only need about 30 minutes of inactive time.
And to affirm this notion of baked beans as summer appropriate fare, I even found that they can simmer away right there on the grill:
I’ve served them classic baked bean style as a side dish, but I’ve also folded in a few handfuls of greens and spooned the mixture over rice and topped it with a big slab of feta. I’ve also made some my favorite beans on toast ever, which is the perfect marriage of beans, jam, and bread.
Shopping Tip for Canned Beans
Many of us around here share an appreciation for good dried beans (hello, fellow bean club members), but I do still cook with canned beans quite a bit, especially in my recipe development work, since that’s how most people cook with beans.
Shopping for canned beans, I try to sample everything. Some brands are plump, meaty, distinct, and really good. But some — and I’m looking at you, organic and expensive health food store brands — are the most waterlogged, flavorless mush. Why such different ends for a simple staple ingredient?
