40
Refried beans
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
40 points (100.0% liked)
Cooking
6624 readers
8 users here now
Welcome to LW Cooking, a community for discussing all things related to food and cooking! We want this to be a place for members to feel safe to discuss and share everything they love about the culinary arts. Please feel free to take part and help our community grow!
Taken a nice photo of your creation? We highly encourage sharing with our friends over at !foodporn@lemmy.world.
Posts in this community must be food/cooking related and must have one of the "tags" below in the title.
We would like the use and number of tags to grow organically. For now, feel free to use a tag that isn't listed if you think it makes sense to do so. We are encouraging using tags to help organize and make browsing easier. As time goes on and users get used to tagging, we may be more strict but for now please use your best judgement. We will ask you to add a tag if you forget and we reserve the right to remove posts that aren't tagged after a time.
TAGS:
- [QUESTION] - For questions about cooking.
- [RECIPE} - Share a recipe of your own, or link one.
- [MEME] - Food related meme or funny post.
- [DISCUSSION] - For general culinary discussion.
- [TIP] - Helpful cooking tips.
FORMAT:
[QUESTION] What are your favorite spices to use in soups?
Other Cooking Communities:
!bbq@lemmy.world - Lemmy.world's home for BBQ.
!foodporn@lemmy.world - Showcasing your best culinary creations.
!sousvide@lemmy.world - All things sous vide precision cooking.
!koreanfood@lemmy.world - Celebrating Korean cuisine!
While posting and commenting in this community, you must abide by the Lemmy.World Terms of Service: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, ableist, or advocating violence will be removed.
- Be civil: disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally insult others.
- Spam, self promotion, trolling, and bots are not allowed
- Shitposts and memes are allowed until they prove to be a problem.
Failure to follow these guidelines will result in your post/comment being removed and/or more severe actions. All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. We ask that the users report any comment or post that violates the rules, and to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
You lost me at the lack of added fat, a critical component for refried beans. Yes, there's a little butter called for with the onion, but not nearly enough fat (ie, none) added to the beans.
Call me a pedantic purist gatekeeper who grew up eating these almost daily, but you posted mashed beans, not refried beans.
Around 100 g butter, maybe I didn't emphasize that enough
That's better. :-)
The following is not direct criticism, as I have used butter to make refried beans and it is easily available - but, butter should be the low down the fat choice list as it has a strong flavor that competes with the beans. The first and most obvious/traditional fat to use is pig lard, but a neutral oil or shortening works perfectly well, too. My grandmother would use saved, rendered bacon fat from a Folgers coffee can she kept near the stove (because she always had bacon fat, grandaddy had to have bacon for every breakfast). I have also used olive oil, but only if making black beans (which can stand up to the flavor). Avocado oil works well, too.
I will try other fats too later. I have used ghee before and it was pretty nice. Do you have any other suggestions?
Nope no other suggestions. Lard and bacon fat are the most common around here (Texas). Olive oil will often appear on menus ostensibly for health reasons. Avocado oil use is growing. I, too, have used ghee but I found the flavor off-putting. (EDIT: However, there are very similar Indian lentil- and bean-based recipes to refried beans where the ghee is perfect, of course. <shrug!>)
Really, what's most important is getting the generous-but-right amount of fat into the beans to emulsify them. Too little and they're chalky and paste-like. Too much and they're overbearingly rich and greasy. Just right and the beans are silky and soft (EDIT: almost but not quite runny when the plate is tilted). That is where I come down strongly and die on that hill. But the particular fat used to achieve this? I have my preferences which I think I can defend, but I am not religious about it.
(This makes me think of a complete side note, Hummus-bit-Tahini needs the same attention to emulsifying the bean with a proper amount of fat. Too many hummus recipes on the internet have far too little oil in them...)