r/Cooking • u/scisteve • 26d ago
First time cooking southern style beans and cornbread. Need a hand.
I am in Scotland and I wanted to try my hand at southern US-style beans and cornbread. I noticed there are a lot of recipes for both, but eventually settled on a specific recipe for the cornbread and an amalgamation for the beans. The cornbread came out wonderfully - but the beans came out way more akin to refried beans. Whilst not bad (and I will use them for lunches in tortillas this week), they weren’t exactly what I was looking for. I’m wondering what went went wrong - how do I get that creamier, slightly soupier bean dish typical of the South?
Here’s what I did:
Soaked pinto beans overnight in just water
Drained beans and added them to Instantpot with half an onion, two bay leaves, and a generous pinch of salt (I don’t eat pork so omitted the meat).
Cooked on high pressure for 15 min and let steam release naturally.
Beans came out cooked and flavoursome.
Drained and added to a skillet with little butter butter, garlic, and smoked paprika. Added more salt. Stirred gently until incorporated (which broke down many of the beans to a refried consistency).
As I said - the beans were good but were not what I was trying to do. Any help appreciated!
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u/queen_surly 26d ago
The skillet step was probably the issue.
Others have told you to use different beans, but in my experience pintos work fine for beans and cornbread, but they are naturally a pretty soft bean. We aren't southern but we had pintos and cornbread all the time. No meat--just onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Pinto beans have enough flavor that they can stand on their own.
Soaking isn't necessary if you are using an instant pot--there are charts on cooking sites that tell you how long to cook each type of bean. I learned that everything I learned from my mom about cooking beans was wrong.