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Ranch House Beans
2 CUPS PINTO BEANS 14 POUND SALT PORK I QUART WATER CHILI POWDER Wash beans, put in a bucket with tight-fitting cover, add pork and water. Let simmer 3-4 hours over slow fire and when beans are half cooked stir in 1 tablespoon Texas chili powder, or more if you can take it. The salt pork should supply the salt and if more water is needed, pour it on.
A plain pot of pintos that asks almost nothing of the cook beyond patience and a steady low fire. A few of its assumptions need translating for a modern stove or a controlled campfire.
- The salt pork quantityThe printed "14 POUND" is a quarter pound of salt pork, roughly 4 ounces, cut into two or three chunks so the fat renders through the pot. That amount is also the recipe's only seasoning apart from the chili powder.
- Water is not enoughTwo cups of dry pintos will drink far more than a quart over three hours. Expect to add hot water two or three times; the recipe says as much, and beans that go dry will scorch on the bottom before they soften.
- SoakingNo soak is specified, and the recipe's 3-4 hours works without one. An overnight soak will shorten the simmer appreciably if you want it.
- "Slow fire"A bare simmer, with the surface barely moving. On a stove that is low heat under a heavy pot; over coals it means the pot set to the side of the fire, not over the flames. A hard boil breaks the skins and turns the pot to mush.
- The tight coverThe lid is there to hold steam and keep ash out of the bucket. Leave it slightly ajar for the last half hour if the liquid needs reducing to a thick gravy.
- Chili powder timingThe recipe adds the powder at the halfway point without saying why. Ground chile and cumin do fade over a long boil, so a second spoonful stirred in near the end sharpens the pot. Texas-style chili powder is a blend of ground chile with cumin, oregano and garlic, not straight cayenne.
- SaltSalt pork varies enormously in cure. Taste before serving rather than trusting it to season the pot on its own, and hold any additional salt until the beans are fully tender.
- YieldTwo cups of dry beans give roughly six cups cooked, enough for four as a main dish with bread or six alongside meat.
Pinto beans, salt pork and chile were staples of cattle-country cooking in Texas and the Southwest, and versions of this pot are common in chuckwagon and camp-cooking books. The pinto travels dry and keeps well, and salt pork was preserved meat before refrigeration reached the range. Commercially blended chili powder was being sold in Texas by the 1890s, which is what makes the seasoning here shorthand rather than a list of individual spices. The instruction to cook in "a bucket with tight-fitting cover" points to outdoor practice: a lidded pail set at the edge of the coals needed little attention.