Baked Beans...4202 Baked Beans (with some Charcuterie)!

So after a hell of a month that included closing on a condo, moving, Halloween, a freaked out 1.5 year old pup (the best dog in the world by the way), unpacking, and arranging our new kitchen to our liking, prepping for a overseas vacation to London, and having an awesome wife who supports the various cooking and brewing adventures of her husband (who is in media sales..not much charcuterie there!) and letting him drag all his cast iron along for the way...well I'm back on it!

My buddy Anthony recently ran into about 40 lbs of deer meat from a hunting buddy of his so we chatted about what to do with it..which prompted me to drag out one of my favorite books (coffee table..kitchen reference..heavy reading...D.All of the Above).."The River Cottage Meat Book". Written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall this book is a meat bible for those who want to understand where the meat they eat comes from, as well as how to utilize all those tasty cuts..including the "offal"..which is a whole book in and of itself.

So before I get off on a meat inspired rant her let me say that the price that Amazon.com is requesting for the above mentioned book (calling it a cook book would do it a dis justice..this is 800+ pages of pure culinary, enivoronmental stewardship, and deep appreciation of that which we eat) a complete short sell...the ultimate under-promise, over deliver book on how to best appreciate our animal resources..in other words this is $26.40 that you will enjoy for years to come.

Ok, off to the topic at hand-Baked Beans! Having never cooked my own baked beans I followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls guidelines closely, but with a few revisions due to what I had on hand. What I ended up throwing together is 1.5lbs of pinto beans (soaked in water overnight), 3 tablespoons of Blackstrap Molasses, 1/4 cup of diced sweet onion, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1tsp of dry mustard powder, 1 cup of organic apple cider, 1/4 cup diced red apple, and....the remaining 16 ounces (+ or - 4 ounces) of my pork belly confit.

And should you want to replicate what I'm thinking will be the best baked beans I've ever had (I've still got 1 hour left of baking) here's the process:

-Rinse and soak beans in water overnight
-Rinse and place beans into a french oven (or any flame proof pot you've got) with enough water that the beans are under by 2 inches or so
-Bring to a vigorous boil for at least 10 minutes ( I did 15 in an attempt to cut down on cooking time...it was a Monday night)
-Replenish any evaporated liquid with water (or use cider as I did), to get us back to at least 1 inch over the layer of beans.
-Simmer for at least one hour to soften up the beans.
-Set your oven to bake at 280 degrees
-Add your onion, apple, molasses, mustard, brown sugar, pork (any cured pork will do well here).
-Place pot into oven to bake for 3 hours.

That's where I'm at right now. One hour to go! The actual recipe calls for 3 hours of baking and then tossing the beans to bring some of the pork to the surface for further browning and thickening of the sauce for another hour but..frankly we'll be worthless at our jobs tomorrow if I try that stunt so we'll try it after 3 hours of baking. I'll be sure to post our results tomorrow for the full "4202 Baked Beans".

Cheers!
Brian