I have got to tell you, the Rancho Gordo Marcella beans were amazing. Some of the best beans that I’ve ever had …. Cannot wait to cook more with these. I used them to create a fall stew: chicken and beans.

My wife calls this a chili because of the flavors from the cumin and salsa and the beans in it. I think it is more of a stew, but I used beans instead of potatoes. It also reminds me of an Italian soup a little bit, probably because of the white beans and tomato sauce.

For those concerned, this isn’t overly spicy. It gets a mild bit of spice kick from the salsa verde, but not over the top at all. This is also not BBQ, if you were looking for smoked or grilled something. Although you could do the chicken on the grill/smoker first, if you wanted.

Creating This Fall Stew: Chicken and Beans

Anyway, here’s the backstory. It’s the first fall weekend and here in Washington it feels like fall. Kinda cold, rainy, chilly mornings, sometimes get some sun in the afternoon. I’ve cooked a lot of good smoked and grilled meat over the last month, or so, and decided to do something different. I did what I usually do for “something different” and I rummaged around in the freezer and the pantry. What I found:

Some chicken thighs that needed to be cooked
Some frozen chicken stock (I put chicken stock in quart freezer bags, about 3 cups worth in one bag, and then freeze it. Works great)
Bag of Marcella beans from Rancho Gordo (Just got them, haven’t tried them yet)
A lonely bottle of Kona Longboard Lager
Bottle of Goya Salsa Verde medium strength
Can of tomato sauce

With that group of ingredients, I knew I could make something that would be warm and feel like Fall. What I decided to do is cook the chicken thighs in a way similar to how I would make chicken and dumplings, making a chicken stew first. At the same time, I would cook the beans using an approach similar to how I do Basic Beans.

Fall Stew: Chicken and Beans

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Recipe by Eric Course: StewsDifficulty: Medium

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

2

hours

30

minutes

Calories

300

kcal

Total time

3

hours

Stewed chicken and beans creates a warm and wonderful Fall Stew.

Ingredients

Beans
1/2 lb dry beans (Rancho Gordo Marcella, Cannellini, White Northern, Navy, etc) or 1 can (if you don’t want to cook from scratch (but why wouldn’t you?)
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp ground cumin
1 bay leaf
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Stew Ingredients
2 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in – about 5 oz each
2 chicken breasts, skinless, boneless – about 7 oz each
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup Lager (I drank the rest of the bottle)
8 oz Salsa Verde medium (Goya is awesome, but any green sauce)
1.5 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground cumin
2 bay leafs
1 tbsp olive oil

Method

Beans
Add olive oil to saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion until translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute.
If these are not Rancho Gordo beans, then you need to pre soak them before the next step.
Add (soaked) beans to a decent cooking pot, for this quantity I use a 2 quart saucepan
Add tomato sauce and cumin and bay leaf
Add enough water to cover beans by about 1 inch total
Bring to boil over high heat, boil for about 5 minutes
Reduce heat to very low, creating a bare simmer by adjusting the heat and the lid
bare simmer means that the liquid will be forming 2-3 bubbles per minute, no more. You want this cooking to be very gentle. You want the beans to cook and form a great stock, but you don’t want to be rough with them, breaking the skin, etc
When you reach the point that you are adding deboned chicken back to the Stew, you are going to add the beans to the stew. Don’t just dump them, which will break/injure the beans. Spoon them from the saucepan into your stew. Then add the stock from the beans.
Chicken Stew
Salt the chicken liberally with the kosher salt. Do this as much as an hour prior, but a long dry brine really isn’t needed since you are stewing the chicken.
Add olive oil to a heavy pot or Dutch oven, get hot over medium heat
Brown chicken until skin is crispy and golden brown and fat from thighs is rendering
Reserve the chicken, add the cumin and bay leaf and cook 1-2 minutes, until aromatic
Add the beer and scrape all browned bits off the bottom of the pan
Add the stock and salsa and stir in well
Return chicken to pot and reduce heat to low, you want this to just be simmering to braise/stew the chicken
Cook until chicken is tender and falling off bones, about 90 minutes
Pull chicken from pot, remove skin, debone, chop/pull chicken into pieces about 1”
Return chicken to pot
At this point the beans ought to be ready to be added from that process, go ahead and add them
Reduce heat to very low, adjust lid as needed, to keep the stew with beans cooking at a bare simmer. Should be forming no more than 2-3 bubbles a second. More than that will damage the beans and you don’t want that.
Continue cooking until beans are done, about another 60 minutes. Beans are done when they are tender enough to easily bite through and do not have any sort of crunch. Stop cooking at this point, or they will get mushy

Notes

Serve with desired toppings, such as diced tomatoes, avocado, shredded cheese, sour cream, tortilla chip strips.
The nutrition information does not include any toppings added.

Nutrition Facts

6 servings per container

Amount Per ServingCalories306
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 7g 11%
- Saturated Fat 1g 5%
Cholesterol 71mg 24%
Sodium 1731mg 73%
Potassium 434mg 13%
Total Carbohydrate 22g 8%
- Dietary Fiber 8g 32%
- Sugars 3g
Protein 33g 66%

Vitamin A 6%
Vitamin C 7%
Calcium 6%
Iron 14%

* The % Daily Value tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

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