Prior to meeting my spouse, I’d done a ton of work trying to make good refried beans, there’s a taste they have at the family run Mexican restaurants that I’ve never been able to mirror. Here’s the trick.
Seperated your beans and juice, keep both. In a shallow pan, heat more oil than you think you need. Here’s the key part, crush two good sized, dry chili peppers and 3 cloves of fresh garlic and put them in the hot oil. Let them fry until they’re dark, like maybe a minute more than burnt. Add the beans to the oil, cook them until most of them split. Mash them with a potato masher as you mix the juice into the pan. Stir until smooth, add a touch more garlic and salt, and cook until it gets to your desired thickness. Most places around here serve it thin like a sauce, I actually prefer it thick like a paste, about as thick as humus.
As for prepping from dry, after you soak them, add them to a pot with 1 dry pepper, 1 onion halved, a fist full of beef or pork bones, oil, and enough water to cover everything by like 3cm. As a vegetarian, instead of the bones, take 3 or 4 shitaki mushrooms, rough choped, dry pan them until they’re about to burn, then put that in the beans. Simmer for 2 hours - 6 hours. Adjust salt before serving.
The two biggest take always are the nearly burnt part and seasoning the oil. That nearly burnt part imparts a far more complex flavor and brings smokey notes that I’ve never been able to pull off without woodsmoke. Seasoning the oil and cooking it like that is basically making a light chili oil, if you’ve ever had it at a pho or ramen shop you already know how much a good chili oil can add to a dish, so imagine replacing plain vegetable oil with a lighter version of that.
Prior to meeting my spouse, I’d done a ton of work trying to make good refried beans, there’s a taste they have at the family run Mexican restaurants that I’ve never been able to mirror. Here’s the trick.
Seperated your beans and juice, keep both. In a shallow pan, heat more oil than you think you need. Here’s the key part, crush two good sized, dry chili peppers and 3 cloves of fresh garlic and put them in the hot oil. Let them fry until they’re dark, like maybe a minute more than burnt. Add the beans to the oil, cook them until most of them split. Mash them with a potato masher as you mix the juice into the pan. Stir until smooth, add a touch more garlic and salt, and cook until it gets to your desired thickness. Most places around here serve it thin like a sauce, I actually prefer it thick like a paste, about as thick as humus.
As for prepping from dry, after you soak them, add them to a pot with 1 dry pepper, 1 onion halved, a fist full of beef or pork bones, oil, and enough water to cover everything by like 3cm. As a vegetarian, instead of the bones, take 3 or 4 shitaki mushrooms, rough choped, dry pan them until they’re about to burn, then put that in the beans. Simmer for 2 hours - 6 hours. Adjust salt before serving.
The two biggest take always are the nearly burnt part and seasoning the oil. That nearly burnt part imparts a far more complex flavor and brings smokey notes that I’ve never been able to pull off without woodsmoke. Seasoning the oil and cooking it like that is basically making a light chili oil, if you’ve ever had it at a pho or ramen shop you already know how much a good chili oil can add to a dish, so imagine replacing plain vegetable oil with a lighter version of that.