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Kidney Beans with Bacon
Wash and soak 1 pint kidney beans in cold water over night; drain, cover with boiling water, add 1/4 pound bacon, boil until beans are tender, and drain. Season beans with salt and pepper to taste. Brown thin slices of bacon in frying pan, and serve over beans.
A plain pot of beans with two treatments of bacon: a quarter pound simmered with them for flavor, and crisp slices laid over the top. The measurements are all volume, which is easy enough to translate.
- A pint of beansDried beans were sold and measured by volume, so 1 pint means 2 cups, roughly 14 oz or 400 g of dry red kidney beans. Expect them to roughly triple in bulk once soaked and cooked.
- Boil, then simmerKidney beans must reach a full boil for at least 10 minutes to destroy phytohaemagglutinin, the lectin that makes undercooked red kidney beans upsetting. After that, drop to a bare simmer; a rolling boil for the whole hour shreds the skins and turns the pot cloudy.
- TimingSoaked beans usually take 1 to 1 1/2 hours to become tender. Older beans take longer, so start tasting at the hour mark rather than trusting a clock.
- Season at the end, as writtenThe recipe holds the salt until the beans are cooked, which is sound here for a different reason than the old belief about tough skins: the simmering bacon is already salting the pot. Taste before adding anything.
- The bacon in the potBacon of this period was generally saltier and fattier than most supermarket bacon now. A thick slab piece or a chunk of salt pork will get closer to the intended effect than four thin strips.
- Don't discard everythingThe instruction to drain leaves the beans dry. Reserve a cup of the cooking liquid and return a few spoonfuls, or the dish eats like a plate of plain beans with bacon on it.
- YieldServes 4 to 6 as a side, or 4 as a supper dish with bread.
- Section headingThe recipe appears under a 'Croquettes' heading in the original, which sits oddly with the dish: nothing here is shaped, breaded, or fried.
The New Royal Cook Book was one of the promotional cookbooks issued by the Royal Baking Powder Company, distributed cheaply or free to put the brand in American kitchens; such books carried a good deal of plain everyday cookery alongside their baking-powder recipes, which is how a pot of beans ends up beside the cakes. Kidney beans and bacon belong to a long line of Anglo-American bean dishes in which a piece of cured pork does the work of a stock, flavoring the pot from the inside while the beans slowly soften.