A lightened version of a New Orleans classic, Red Beans & Rice. Recipe below.

Last week I talked about cold soup. This week I do a 180, with hearty, spicy red beans and rice. A couple of weeks ago, we had a cold, gray spell in Chicago that gave me a hankering for some. I started with two recipes—one way too simple, the other a little too busy sounding—and created my own. But you don’t have to wait for cold weather to make it—anyone from Louisiana will tell you that any day is a good day for red beans and rice.

A traditional dish throughout southern Louisiana—and particularly linked to New Orleans—red beans and rice was actually born out of two traditions. Many families couldn’t afford to buy meat for their meals every day, but a ham dinner was a Sunday tradition. And that meant there would be a ham bone left over for Monday.

Mondays were also the traditional day for doing laundry—this was back before automatic washing machines and two-income families. So as load after load of wash was done, either by hand or in old-fashioned wringer washers [my grandmother actually still used one of the later models when I was a kid and hung her wash out to dry in the backyard], it was easy to have a big pot of beans with that ham bone simmering on the stove for hours, with just an occasional stir as you passed through the kitchen. And that made red beans and rice the perfect traditional Monday night dinner all across southern Louisiana.

Besides being amazingly flavorful with all those Cajun or Creole seasonings, this dish was practical. Beans served with rice was a great source of protein when people couldn’t afford to eat a lot of meat. And a big pot of beans could feed a big family cheaply. It was reasonably low in fat too, depending on how much actual meat had survived the Sunday dinner.

The way this dish has evolved, though, it’s anything but low in fat. Some recipes still call for a ham bone—or more often, ham hocks [which epicurious.com describes as “the lower portion of a hog’s hind leg, made up of meat, fat, bone, gristle and connective tissue,” usually cured or smoked or both]. But now it also almost invariably includes some kind of smoked sausage—classically, andouille or else kielbasa or some other smoked sausage. Read “fat bomb.”

I’ve lightened up this New Orleans classic considerably, without sacrificing flavor or stick-to-your-ribs heartiness. First, I use a lighter sausage with less fat. It’s still not exactly Weight Watchers, though—if you check the nutrition chart, you’ll see even the light versions contain an impressive amount of fat. And for that reason, I use half the amount of sausage a similar recipe calls for and substitute chicken breast or turkey cutlets.

I’ve sped it up too, with the help of canned beans. It still takes a little over an hour to pull together, but most of that time is just letting it simmer to blend all the flavors together. In other words, maybe time to cycle through one load of laundry if you’re feeling in a traditional mood. Continue reading “Lightening up, speeding up a New Orleans classic” →