Yep! That Food of the Gods, pure rendered pork fat.
"Isn´t eating lard suicidal?", you ask. On the contrary, lard is mostly unsaturated fat and chock full of the healthy monosaturated fats (45%.)
Knowing what we do now about trans fats, lard is back in a big way. As chefs reach out for more and more lard, a shortage seems to be developing in the US.
No other fat makes better pie crust, better fried chicken, better french fries ...and in my kitchen today, frijoles refritos!
The silkiness, mouth feel, and strange sense of primordial satisfaction that lard leaves you with pushes refritos into their proper place as one of the great bean dishes of the world. Refried beans made without it are just plain lame.
Served with the treeeemendous corn torillas from Tortillas de Pancho Villa, the stage is set for a feast.
When the great Argentine imported food ban was announced, I started to worry about some of my favorites. At the same time, I started to make a mental list of the banned items that I could make myself. Refritos, I thought, would be a cinch ...and they are!
So on my next trip to Chinatown I zipped into Casa China for their great selection of freshly dried beans (although dried beans can theoretically keep forever, it´s best to buy ones no more than a year old.)
In Mexico, frijoles refritos are usually made from black beans. We yanquis are more familiar with the Texas style that uses pinto beans. The last time I bought pintos at Casa China I was really impressed; they were probably the best I´d ever had with their levels of flavors and tenderness. So I was fired-up for another shot at cooking them.Frijoles Refritos
cooked pinto beans
onions, diced
lard
garlic
salt
herbal component
For every pound of cooked beans, you´ll need 1/4 cup of lard. As to the diced onions, add them to your taste ...just remember that this is a bean dish not an onion dish. Garlic is essential and the beans can take a lot of it. If you love garlic, you probably can´t over do it. Beans also need more salt than you think. However, don´t salt your beans while they are cooking.
Slowly saute the onions and garlic with salt in lard. Covering the pan for a few minutes during the saute will help the onions begin to liquify. Do not brown them.
Once the onions begin to release their juices, add your "herbal component." This is where I long for the Mexican herbs and spices from old Maxwell Street in Chicago. This is where the herb epazote and/or Mexican oregano should be. Until my garden comes in, however, I used a bit of oregano and marjoram for the hint of herbalness that the dish needs.
On a lark, I decided to experiment with adding some Bolivian marching pepper, locoto en polvo. It turned out great! Although I usually like to add some salsa picante to the finished dish, the dried powdered locoto has a great herbally-ness. And since the locoto seems to need a little time to develop its full hotness, throwing it into the saute pan worked perfectly.
Cover the pan again and allow the spices to macerate with the onions and garlic.
Drain the beans ...but reserve the liquid. Bring your saute pan up to a sizzling temperature and add the whole cooked beans to the mixture. Saute the bean mixture over high heat ensuring that all of them cook evenly. Just before the onions have a chance to brown, pour the mixture into a suitable container for mashing.
Mash the mixture with a potato masher or potato ricer until you reach the consistency you like. If the mash begins to look too thick, add some of the reserved bean cooking liquid. I like my refritos coarsely mashed even to the point of the occasional whole bean surfacing in the mix. If you like a more pureed consistency: keep mashin´.
Tip: Your saute pan probably won´t be big enough to fry all of your cooked beans at once. That can be a good thing! By preparing the dish in two separate batches, you can adjust the seasoning on the second batch to compensate for any over or under seasoning of the first.
Now kickback and enjoy! For my part, I immediately grabbed a divine corn torilla from Tortillas de Pancho Villa and spread it with the frijoles, topped it with a pale imitation of queso blanco and dropped it onto a hot skillet just long enough to melt the cheese. Deelightful. Pancho Villa´s tortillas are absolutely dreamy with their hominy-corniness and perfect texture. The perfect beaniness of the fine pintos ...not to mention the lard ...is nothing short of harmony. Next time out, I´ll be sure to serve them with lots of lovely veggies and salsas.
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