Recipe: Best Homemade Refried Beans ... EVER

Alrighty kids, here it is, Doña Esperanza's secret, fabulous, can't be beat, best refried beans recipe.  I should make you all sign a blood oath ...

This is how my mother taught me to make refried beans.  It is a classic example of taking just a few ingredients and making pure frigging gold.  It is also typically Salvadoran (in that we make very smooth refried beans, unlike Mexican versions, which tend to be chunkier), simple, easy (no soaking), very healthy, and so flipping delicious.

Here's what you do:

Take half a bag of pinto beans (here in South Africa the closest I could find was red-speckled sugar beans) or if you're very lucky and live near a Salvadoran shop (like the Lempa Market in St. Paul) you can get authentic Salvadoran red beans.  Sort through them for stones and rinse.

Put beans in a large pot, add one small (or half a medium) onion (quartered), one small (or half large) green pepper (rough chopped) and three medium garlic cloves (peeled but not chopped.)  Cover with cold water by about 4-5 inches. If you use the whole bag of beans double your quantities.

Bring to a rolling boil and keep it there for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours till beans are splitting their skins and are completely soft.  Check on them every once in a while, give them a stir and make sure they are always covered with water by at least an inch or two.  An easy way to do this step is in the crock pot.  Oh, how I miss my crock pot!

Once they are soft, add salt.  DO NOT ADD SALT BEFORE THIS POINT.  If you add salt to beans before they are soft they won't ever get tender.  Start with 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of salt.  You can add more later, but once you put too much salt in it's impossible to undo it.  In fact, I start with just a little, blend them, then taste and adjust.

Next step is to blend the beans.  Blend them completely smooth (in a blender) with all the veggies and most, if not all of their broth.  You want them pretty liquidy.  It shouldn't be a paste at all.  Because it's liquidy at the start, it takes a while to cook them down to the consistency you want and therefore develops more flavor.  Taste the beans again, add salt if necessary, but remember that you will be cooking a lot of the water out and the flavors will concentrate.  Again, better to be on the bland side at this point.

Now, take another small to medium onion.  Quarter it and add it to a large, cold (non-stick) frying pan with 2 tablespoons of a neutral tasting oil (canola, light olive oil, etc.)

 

Heat up the oil and onion slowly.  And then cook them ... and cook them and cook them ... until they look like this:

Yeah.  Till it's black and burned.  Don't freak out, this is the secret part of the recipe and I SWEAR that it won't taste burned or horrible.  Now, add your liquidy beans to the pan and stir around: 

What happens is that the oil and the onions flavor the hell out of the beans.  Truly scrumptious.  Cook them down until you get the consistency you want.  Make sure you stir them once in a while because the bottom will start to get thick while the top stays thinner, so stir them to even out the consistency.   When you've got it how you want it, pick out the onion pieces, and make any final salt adjustments. 

In El Salvador, we like them a little less pasty and more liquidy, but you do it how you want.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of the final product -- duh! 

But here's a picture of them in the actual pupusa:

They are very solid here because they were being used for the filling.  Usually, I'd leave them softer. 

These are absolutely delicious as a side dish, in burritos, on tostadas, as a healthy dip for veggies or tortilla chips, of course as filling for your pupusas ... or ... you know, at midnight right out of the fridge on a spoon!

PS:  Of course you can add more spices (bay leaves and cumin are my favorites) ... but when I want refried beans that taste like home, this is what I make, and they are my absolute favorites.