Boston Baked Beans.

[colonel]

I have made gallons of beans over the years but they have all been of the Tex-Mex variety. I love baked beans but I've had to give up the canned stuff because it's loaded with sodium.

So I looked up a recipe and while it does take a long time to make them the effort involved is laughable. Other than the soaking and baking my total prep time was under 10 minutes.

2 & 1/2 cups dried navy or northern beans.
1/2 lb. pork belly.
1 med. onion (diced)
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 teasp. dijon mustard
4 cloves
3 cups chicken stock (the recipe actually calls for water but I've always got stock on hand)

Soak the beans in water over night. Warm the stock/water and add the cloves, sugar, mustard, molasses and sugar. Cut the pork belly into 1/2" squares and place half on the bottom of a dutch oven. Layer with 1/2 the beans. Add all the onion in one layer. Add the remaining beans and top with the rest of the pork. Pour stock mixture over until it covers the beans. Cover and bake at 275C. (low and slow) for about 3 hours. Stir the mixture and add more liquid if required. Return to oven and bake for another 2 to 3 hours.

Mine are in the oven as I write this so I'll let you know how they turn out later. I figure the batch cost about $6 to make and will be the equivalent of about 10 regular sized cans.

NOTE: You'll notice that there is no salt in this recipe. It was called for but since I used stock instead of water I left it out. I'll check the seasoning at the 3 hour mark and adjust accordingly.

[colonel]

Only took about 4 hours or so.
No salt added but I did add a splash of soy sauce at the 3 hour mark to deepen the colour.
Outstanding result and I expect they'll be even better tomorrow.

[colonel]

I recently tweeked this recipe by using half stock and half Guinness.

Fucking awesome.