Advertisement

Mother's Baked Beans in a Bowl

Time5 hours 30 minutes
YieldsServes 8
Mother's Baked Beans in a Bowl
Share
Print RecipePrint Recipe

Cleaning out garages is an awful job, and I put it off until mine was so overstuffed I couldn’t jam in anything more. But there are rewards too, like finding old kitchen treasures and remembering the wonderful food associated with them.

Poking through cobwebs in one dark corner, I discovered a box of kitchen implements, each neatly wrapped in yellowed, crackly newspaper. The largest bundle contained a chipped crockery bowl, the one my mother always used for baked beans. I remember the rich fragrance as the beans cooked for hours. It was a simple dish, just navy beans, a chunk of ham, an onion stuck with cloves, brown sugar and a layer of bacon slices over the top. And of course the bowl. The beans would not have been the same without it.

I always ate sliced tomatoes with the beans, nothing more, and this was one of my favorite meals. The flavor, so tantalizing, came back to me as I dusted off the bowl, so I brought it to the kitchen and set about resurrecting the old recipe--nothing had ever been written down.

Here it is, along with other vintage bean recipes that deserve another chance. Most are quite simple because they come from an era when cooks used only a handful of ingredients, varying these with great skill for different effects.

The essential ingredient for my mother’s beans is, of course, an old crockery bowl. That you’ll have to hunt for at garage sales and thrift shops--unless you too have a garage stuffed with long forgotten kitchenware.

Advertisement
1

Place the beans in a bowl, add water to cover generously and let soak overnight.

2

The next day, drain and rinse the beans. Place them in a large saucepan or Dutch oven and add the ham hock and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook the beans, partially covered, until the skins wrinkle, about 1 hour. Using a slotted spoon, lift the beans into a large crockery bowl or deep casserole. Reserve the cooking liquid. There should be about 3 cups. Lift out the ham hock. Remove the skin and fat and cut the meat into bite-size pieces. Add the ham to the beans.

3

Heat the oven to 325 degrees.

4

Combine the brown sugar, molasses, mustard and salt in a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup of the reserved liquid and stir until the seasonings are dissolved and blended. Pour this over the beans and ham. Peel the onion. Cut off the top and root ends but leave the onion whole. Stick the cloves into the onion, and bury it in the beans. Add the remaining cooking liquid to the beans. Cover and place them in the oven. Bake 2 hours, checking the oven temperature after 30 minutes; if the beans boil too hard, reduce the heat. If the liquid is not simmering, increase the heat to 350 degrees.

5

Remove the beans from the oven and lay the bacon slices over the top. Increase the heat to 350 degrees, return the beans to the oven and bake uncovered 2 hours longer. Add water if the beans should become too dry. The beans should be juicy but not wet. Taste and add more salt if needed. Accompany with a plate of tomato slices.

After the beans soaked overnight, my mother would bring them to a boil, adding a pinch of baking soda just before they boiled, then drain them and proceed with the recipe. Supposedly, this made the beans more digestible. That step has been eliminated here, but you can reinstate it if you like.