By Chef Tony Martineau
Modern cooking technology meets good old fashioned baked beans! Use your heirloom beans — one kind or try a mix — to make this New England favorite.
Ingredients:
- Two Cups Green Thumb Farms Dried Heirloom Beans – Yellow Eye, Soldier or Jacob’s Cattle beans work well!
- ⅓ Cup molasses
- 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 1.5 tsp. dry mustard
- ⅛ tsp. black pepper
- 3 Cups of boiling water
- 2.5 tsp. or to taste, salt (to be added after cooking)
- 2 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with ¼ Cup cold water to create a slurry, mix well before adding
Pre-soak:
On a cookie sheet, sort beans looking closely and removing split, broken beans and field debris. If you’re interested in making beans very digestible, soak them covered with plastic wrap overnight at room temperature. This reduces hard to digest sugars.
Place cleaned beans in a bowl and rinse them with tap water 3 – 4 times. Drain and add enough tap water to cover the beans with 2” of water. Cover with plastic wrap and let them soak overnight. The next morning you’ll find the beans plump and rehydrated, drain and rinse them well 2 two times.
Note: Two cups of dried beans will produce 4-5 cups of rehydrated beans.
Parcook the beans:
Add pre-soaked beans to the Instant Pot, covered with 1” of water. Cook on manual (High Pressure with Keep Warm off for 25 minutes. Let pressure naturally release.)
Remove the lid and strain the beans. Rinse with cold water and pour back into the Instant Pot.
Make the syrup:
- On the stove top using a medium size saucepan add the following ingredients and bring to a boil until sugar is dissolved
- 2 Cups water
- ⅓ Cup Molasses
- 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 1.5 tsp. dry mustard
- ⅛ tsp. black pepper
Put it all together:
Add syrup to the beans BE SURE BEANS ARE JUST COVERED WITH SYRUP ADD WATER IF NECESSARY. Cook for 10 minutes at high pressure with Keep Warm off. Quick release steam immediately. Remove the lid and pour cornstarch slurry into the beans using the Saute option to thicken.
Gently stir beans to prevent sticking, cornstarch will thicken the sauce. Add salt to taste. If necessary thin syrup with water if it becomes too thick. Turn Instant Pot off and serve!
Makes 6-8 servings.
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