Southwest Beef & Beans

[LarryW]

Southwest Beef & Beans

Ingredients:

1 pound dried pinto beans
About 6 cups water
1 bottle beer, or about 1/2 cup of Port, and/or 1 can beef broth
½ pound salt pork, cut up (room temp)
2 pounds chuck steak (room temp)
1 red chili pepper, cut up
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 6oz can tomato paste
1 ½ TBS chili powder
1 TSP cumin seeds
½ TSP Marjoram
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
2 TBS Cholula hot sauce
Kosher Salt & Pepper


Directions:

Soak beans in a pot overnight. Next day, brown salt pork in skillet, drain off fat in paper towels. In the bean pot, add pork with the beans, and bring to a boil and cook about 15-20 minutes. Cut up chuck steak in about 1” cubes and brown in skillet. Make sure there's a nice crisp on the beef cubes. In crock pot, combine beans and pork (with the water), beef, and remaining ingredients. Mix it up. Cover with liquid (beer, port wine, and/or beef broth). Cover and cook 1 hour on HIGH, then lower heat to LOW and cook an additional 9 hours until beans and everything is tender. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired. Add Cholula. Thicken with corn meal if necessary. Serve in bowls or over white rice and garnish with Cilantro. A nice slice of homemade cornbread with butter goes good with this, too. Salt & pepper to taste.

Prep time: about 45 minutes
Cook time: 10 hours
Yield: about 10 one and a half cup servings

Freezes well and easy to re-heat.

Enjoy!

[Gypsy]

That sounds pretty tasty!

[Richard]

Sure sounds tasty - but - if it contains pork, it ain't Southwest around these parts.

Richard

[LarryW]

Richard, you're right about Texas being the center of the beef world, but I ain't sure how to make a good chalupa or pozole (for instance) w/o least a little pork. 'Course, when it comes to ribs I'd rather have beef ribs any day. Puts me at odds with the Carolina crowd. Can't find any around here. Gonna be in Austin with daughter and granddaughter in March, and you can bet I'm going to have a happy share of Tex-Mex, beef ribs, and Texas beer.

FYI, made a pot of this recipe just today and it turned out great. I substituted sweet basil for the majoram (had run out), and it worked fine. I boiled the beans beforehand for a good 15-20 minutes, and that helped tenderize the stuff pretty good. Usually add about half a stick of butter with the bean-boil but forgot. Turned out ok, though. Started the pot at 0714 thinking I'd have supper ready by around 1730, but to my happy surprise the batch was ready by 1430. Attribute that to pre-boiling the beans and brazing the beef. Used a 3-pound piece of chuck. I like a roast with some "marbling" (fat) because it sure adds flavor to the batch.

It's fairly easy to make. Hope y'all like it.

Edit note: It's important to let the beef/pork rest at room temp before you start this. If you take it out of the fridge and then start it seems to shock the meat too much.