A recipe for Nina's Beans that I didn't eat
But I did taste!
There’s something about a deeply simple recipe that has an allure to it. There are so few ingredients, and the steps are so limited, that it feels like magic when it comes together better than things you could have spent more time on. This is how I’d thought about Nina’s Beans, a recipe from the cookbook that has basically nothing in it, but was allegedly written by our family friend Nina, herself a great cook. I’d always wondered about them: these beans, I thought, must be incredible.
Some of that assumption came from the fact that we never ate a lot of beans and until meeting my bean-obsessed partner, I’d never deviated from that pattern. It took him and a Bon Appétit by way of Marlow & Sons recipe I’ve mentioned here too many times to count to make me a real evangelist. Now that we’re off the coveted Rancho Gordo waitlist, I’m swimming in them, which made this recipe the obvious go-to when I decided to make some dinner to drop off at a friend’s house for her family post newborn baby.
Now that I have been making beans for a few years and have opinions about them, there’s a few things about this recipe I just wouldn’t do—and plenty that seemed fine. I went with what I called in my head “Dalmatian beans” but are actually Vaquero beans from, yes, Rancho Gordo. (“A really lovely cousin to the Anasazi bean, Vaquero have intriguing black and white markings, not unlike an appaloosa horse might don.”) I soaked them for a good eight-ish hours before starting the cook.
Next, I wouldn’t drain and rinse the starches off after soaking; you’re getting rid of all those delicious flavors, the way you wouldn’t just throw away all the pasta water after cooking pasta, so I didn’t. I typically don’t use chicken stock but wasn’t mad about it, and just added some Better Than Bouillon to my pot with more water. We didn’t have any fresh herbs so I went with a mix of dried—rosemary, oregano and thyme—and that onion. Then, per Carla Lalli Music per Marlow & Sons I added my peeled gloves of garlic in some olive oil floating on the top, brought it to a boil, and then let it simmer.
Once they were on their way to cooked—i.e. several beans you taste are all cooked through—I added more salt and pepper, and then, right at the very end, Lacinato kale and chicken sausage, to wilt and cook them, respectively. After tasting and deeming it “good,” I let my pot of beans cool as I made myself dinner, and then glopped them into a Tupperware to be handed off. I was told their child enjoyed this dish, and they did too (“and I know how long beans take so that is extra nice of you”); all you can really ask for.
Lastly, to do my due diligence, I emailed the titular Nina, the one who allegedly gave the recipe to my father after he was so impressed with it he had to have it, to see what she remembered about them. This is what she wrote back:
I have zero memory of having written this or even having made it. Sounds really boring. Do you remember liking this? I guess it would be ok alongside some fish or chicken…
Iconic!
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