About the Recipe
Red beans and rice are the definition of comfort food. This is Mama Cheryl's recipe that I had to Dacus Up...just because. This is not a quick and easy recipe, but anyone can do it...it just takes some time. Don't try to cut corners and rush it by adding canned beans. Yeah...you can, but dried beans prepared like in the recipe is so much better.
Ingredients
1 lb dry Red Beans
1 qt chicken stock
½ lb of bacon
½ bunch of celery
1 large onion
1 bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic - diced
â…“ cup Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
1-2 tbsp Creole seasoning
3 bay leaves
1 lb smoked sausage - cut into 1-inch pieces
Kitchen Tools
3 qt stock pot
Large heavy bottom skillet
Preparation
Step 1
Soak beans overnight in 2 quarts of water. Rinse and remove bad beans.
Step 2
Add beans to 1 quart of fresh water and 1 quart of chicken stock in a 3-qt stock pot; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.
Step 3
Chop onion, celery, green pepper, and garlic in the Manual Food Processor.
Step 4
Fry bacon in large skillet. Set bacon aside.
Step 5
Add celery, green pepper, garlic, and onion mixture to bacon drippings. Sauté veggies over medium heat until soft.
Step 6
Add smoked sausage, crumbled bacon and celery, green pepper, garlic, onion mixture, spices, and Worcestershire sauce to the pot of beans.
Step 7
Cook over low heat for 1-2 hours. You may need to add water from time to time.
Step 8
Serve over white rice with some French bread.
Tips:
This is better the next day. Once the pot cools, place it in the refrigerator until the next day. Then slowly reheat over low heat.
Pre-cook the smoked sausage on the grill to add a little smoke flavor.
On the topic of smoked sausage...Cajun andouille sausage is the standard, but you can use any smoked linked sausage.