Nothing against barbecue-style baked beans, all tangy sauced and full of smoky burnt end drippings — hi summer, get here quick please — but I hardly see why navy beans get to have all of the fun. Where are the baked kidney beans, black-eyed peas and gigantes? Baking is a phenomenal way to cook dried beans and a great way to make something more complex of canned ones; when you start considering flavors, the sky, nay, the globe is the limit. I want these red beans slow-baked in a big casserole, scooped with tortilla chips. I want baked black beans heaped over tostones, braised white beans over Catalan-style tomato bread and I want what we had for dinner last night for the first time all over again, because it was perfect.
In an attempt to wean myself from my ongoing obsessive fixation on all things Tex-Mex — taco, tortilla, fajita and quesadilla — I didn’t get as far as it may seem. Sure, I spiked my baked chickpeas with Middle Eastern spices, but once I’d scooped them onto oven-crisped pita chips, dolloped it with lemon-tahini yogurt sauce, a finely chopped tomato-cucumber salad, well-toasted pine nuts, hot sauce and a fistful of chopped parsley, I realized I’d basically made Middle Eastern nachos. And I’m not even a little sorry.
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