Home, Cooking: Endless Refried Beans

In our house, we don’t use salt on our driveway or stairs, because certain of our number believe that it’s bad for concrete. (They may be right. I’m laughing at the subhed in this article from a concrete company: “Salt, The Great Deceiver.”) Because of our anti-salt stance, we use only shovels and sand, and get a front-row seat to all the ways snow and ice shifts and changes when it stays around for a while. Right now, early January’s dump is mostly gone from the driveway, save for one stubborn patch that’s had quite a life: it started as snow, then became ice, then (after we sifted a few bags onto it) sand-ice; now, it’s mostly a crust of sand, with a tiny little rugged mountain range of frozen water in the middle. The Patch persists. It will probably be with us until April. 

The many guises snow and ice can take have had me thinking of this Salvadoran recipe, from chef Anthony Salguero, which is almost magical in the way it transforms black beans into something new. Salguero describes the result as “thick enough to stand up on a plate” — a little goes a long way. And truly — the concentrated mash you get from this recipe is a different species than typical brown refried pintos. Endless Refrieds are far more garlicky, far more intense, more of a paste than a mash, glossy with infused fat. For vegans and vegetarians wanting something rich, they’re a January treat.

Endless Refried Beans

(via Anthony Salguero/Bon Appetit) 

Ingredients

• 16 garlic cloves (about 1 ½ heads), smashed 
• 5¼ cups cooked and rinsed black beans, such as Shagbark (from a little less than 1 pound dried beans, or exactly three 15-oz cans if you don’t want to cook your own) 
• 1¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1 jalapeño or (if you want spicier) hotter pepper, split down the middle
• Fun stuff for the top and sides: Sliced avocado, sour cream, chopped carrot, chopped cabbage, scrambled eggs, tortillas, some of that “fill your fridge” salsa from Casa  

Directions

1. Set up a big food processor. Chop the garlic cloves in it until you get a minced paste. (This is a recipe where it’s worthwhile to use actual garlic, rather than the jarlic I generally draft when making everyday stir-fries and soups.) 
2. Put ¼ cup of the olive oil into a pan (nonstick is good, if you countenance the use of such) and heat it at medium-low. Scrape the garlic into this, and fry it until it gets a little brown around the edges, but not too brown. 
3. Put the beans into the food processor (no need to wipe or wash out in between). Puree them, using a bit of water if you need to get things going, until they become a fairly even, gray-black mush. 
4. Put the bean mush into the pan, along with the split pepper, and some salt. Turn the pan up to medium. For about ten minutes, move the beans around the pan, watching as they turn a darker and deeper color. 
5. Now, you’re going to infuse the mash with the rest of the olive oil. Turn the burner down to medium-low, and pour in a quarter-cup, stirring. Turn, stir, and cook for about five to seven minutes, until the oil’s been worked in completely and the edges of the mass get dry (this is a good job for a kid who’s learning to cook). Do this four times, until the remaining cup of oil is gone, and the beans are glossy, dark black, and thick. 
6. Serve in dollops on a plate, with whatever sides are desired.