Amazing Baked Beans: Summertime BBQ

My dear friend and fellow foodie Tim had a barbecue last night to celebrate his 33rd birthday.  Knowing that Tim, like myself and many of our friends, are food lovers, I had a hard time deciding what to bring.  After much contemplation, I decided to try, once again, a dish I have never had success with, and that is baked beans.  Now, you may be asking yourself why this would be a hard dish to make.  Trust me, I ask myself that a lot.  Perhaps it is that I've gotten used to the cloyingly sweet beans that are so readily available in a can.

I did some research and found a recipe that was made by Alton Brown.  I read the reviews, and made some simple adjustments, and honestly, these turned out amazingly well.  For this party, I made one pound of dried beans, but when I do it again, I'll double the recipe.  It all got eaten up so quickly!  Now, if you're not a pork eater, don't even bother with this recipe.  I mean it.  It needs the bacon.  Sorry, but it's true.  In fact, if you can get your hands on some slab bacon, all the better.  For this recipe, I used a very high quality, naturally hickory smoked, thick cut bacon that I trimmed of the huge hunks of fat.

How many will this serve?  Well, I don't know.  I think this is a good sized batch for a barbecue of 10-12.  Any more than that and I'd double it.




Baked Beans

      1 pound dried Great Northern beans

3/4 pound slab or thick cut bacon, chopped (remove sections that are solely fat)

1 large onion, chopped medium

2 jalapenos, serranoes, or Thai chiles, finely chopped

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

2 T. barley syrup (or, if you don't have it, additional molasses)

4 cups chicken broth

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 teaspoons dried mustard

Directions

Heat oven to 250 degrees F.

Soak beans in a plastic container overnight in just enough cold water to submerge them completely.

Place a cast iron or enameled cast iron Dutch oven over medium heat and stir in the bacon, onion, and jalapenos until enough fat has rendered from the bacon to soften the onions, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, dark brown sugar, barley syrup and molasses.

Drain the beans. Add the drained beans to the Dutch oven. Add the chicken broth, salt, pepper, worcestershire, cayenne and dried mustard. Give them a stir and cover with the lid. Place the Dutch oven in the oven for 6 to 8 hours, or until the beans are tender, stirring occasionally. When the beans are tender, remove the lid and raise the oven temperature to 350.  Bake, stirring every 15 minutes, until the consistency is what you like (do this step if you don't want your beans to be soupy).  This may take up to an hour.  Taste for salt and add to your liking.  

Enjoy!