Full of Beans... Rancho Gordo Heirloom Beans

Perfect for the season. Where do you get them?

Flor de May is a Mexican bean, typical in the central part of the country. It has a very short availability window and does not store well. It’s a bean that meant to be grown, dried and eaten on a regular basis. The Flor de Mayo’s I used were from the recent RG Bean Club shipment. Steve includes a a little newsletter in each one talking about the items in the box and offering recipes or bean specific cooking tips. He suggested cooking the beans rather than stockpiling them.

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Oh interesting. I did a search on their website and Flor de Mayo isn’t listed as one of their products, out-of-stock or otherwise. They only list the Lila Bean (out-of-stock) as a good substitute for Flor de Mayo. They must have saved them for you elite Bean Club members. :wink: Jealous, I’ve been on the BC waitlist forever. But I still have other beans, plus the fantastic Moro Beans on their way, so I can wait.

Side note: I did read that Flor de Mayo is not a long lasting bean. It made me start thinking about other beans and how long beans at Rancho Gordo outlets like Monsieur Marcel sit on the shelf. So of course, I have to do a deep dive into my faves to see what the recommended shelf-life is. :relaxed:

Thanks for the info!

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Yes, the Flor de Mayo were saved for Bean Club. The Flor de Junio (Silvias on the RG website) are also a good substitute. I travel in Mexico quite a bit and when I’m in Michoacan or Mexico City, I always try and find some Flor de Mayo beans to bring home. They can be hard to find there as well, or often times aren’t labeled as such. Flor de Junio is easier to find and is also a nice bean, a little sturdier and a little less creamy than the Flor de Mayo.

Look on the side of your RG package, under the cooking instructions, there should be a Best By date.

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Marcus Samuelsson’s Blackeyed Peas in Coconut Milk & Ethiopian Spices. Rec’d by @DiningDiva!

Shhh… am I allowed to say I think I like Bayou Magic BEP more than Rancho Gordo’s? The peas cook quickly which is great, but the black part (eyes) were chewy until about the 3rd reheat.

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Yum, looks good.

And, yes, you are allowed to say you like a different pea/bean. You’re not alone in that regard with BEPs :slight_smile:

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Red Beans & Green Rice
RG Domingo Rojos…love this bean, it’s both creamy and meaty

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Nice. I should’ve bought them again when I restocked, but I was already getting the Morros and wanted to finally try RG’s Pintos.

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Red beans and rice is everything

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I :hearts: Red Beans & Rice! Yours look f-ing delicious.

I love red beans and rice, too. Did you use any seasoning meat?

This was for vegans so I did the slow cooked aromatics thing that Colombians so. Tons of garlic onion shallot and red pepper. Let it caramelise forever… but then when beans were almost done I hit it with another dose of caramelised aromatics lol

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Nice!

Hm, I’m not familiar with that Colombian thing (or much Colombian food at all, really). If you have any links or even just the name of a recipe where that happens I’d love to learn a little more about it!

I was just talking with Mrs. WireMonkey about the use of alliums to bump up savoriness. It seems really common but I haven’t heard a ton of explanations about it (certainly not in the same way people talk about how glutamate-heavy ingredients increase umami). When I looked it up a while back it didn’t seem like onions naturally contained higher instances of glutamates than any other vegetable.

Mrs. WireMonkey had the idea that rather than being a high concentration of straight glutamates from the fermentation or other breakdown of amino acids it was the presence of similar broken down proteins and sugar-protein bonded compounds resulting from the Maillard reaction when you brown things. Put another way, both types of savoriness have more freely available glutamates but maybe browned alliums are savory the way that browned bread or seared meat is savory rather than something that’s straight glutamate like soy sauce or parm.

We were just spitballing but it seemed to make some intuitive sense and would also be consistent with your use of aromatics in this dish.

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Sounds like a sofrito - many Spanish speaking countries have there own version. If you have the bestia cookbook there’s a version in there

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Oh, right! Some time ago I looked up different versions of sofrito and recaito and they all looked good but without a reference point I wasn’t sure what exactly it was supposed to taste like. Thanks for the Bestia reference!

This. I’m not a science person but I think the way @nemroz did it caramelizes the aromatics and creates an affect like browning meat and adds the savoriness soy sauce and parm (parmesan?) doesn’t. I use a lot of butter (PSTOB) in my vegetarian beans, but you can’t do it for vegans. I’m definitely doing his method for my vegans - the bean gravy looks delicious. I’d maybe add a bit of vegan butter too… because I’m a butter junky. :wink:

@WireMonkey yea it’s definitely a version of sofrito, i just did it in 2 stages and way heavier than before… Came out great.

I do urge you to visit this restaurant

how much guilt do i feel about adding some chicken stock? non at all

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Omg! @Nemroz You devil!

I’m surprised they didn’t taste it. My vedge sister can spot chicken broth & fish sauce immediately. So not necessary to cheat… your dish seemed delicious without it.