Ledas' Speckled Butter Beans & Chorizo Links

Ledas' Speckled Butter Beans & Chorizo Links
Ultra satisfying southern food that tastes of late summer harvests!   

Inspiration comes with every stop into Tom Spicer's food shop. An unassuming old storefront hides a near mystical garden trip into the coolest fresh veg available in DFW. I bagged a native Texas virgin olive oil, massive tomatoes, basil, chanterelles, baby greens and a rainbow colored bag of speckled butter beans...beautiful ! 

I searched for a traditional southern take on these beans but, darn!  they all seemed a bit lacking, so this is our riff.....

Ingredients:

1 quart of fresh cleaned Specked butter beans.
2 walnut sized shallots, minced

1 green onion fine sliced

4 oucnes of cubed Tasso
1 pinch Aleppo pepper flakes

2 tablespoons butter.

4 links of Chorizo- about one lb.
2 tablespoons flour
1 quart chicken stock
Salt & Pepper1 celery stalk, fine mince
one lemon, zest and juice
one small anaheim pepper, fine mince

1/4 cup cream
Tabasco- sometimes you need a last minute boost.

Melt down the butter and sweat all the shallots, celery, Tasso, and

green onions.  When it all just starts to turn golden splash in the chicken stock and bring it to a boil.  Toss in the beans, bring back to a boil for a minute then back it down to simmer.  Grind in some black pepper, pinch of salt and toss in the lemon zest.

Be sure to stir it a bit every now and then and cook for about 1.5 hours, when it all appears to be cooked and the beans are tender you can toss in the chopped parsley, the Aleppo pepper flakes and adjust the salt and pepper.

In a small pan slowly saute on medium the chorizos until nice and brown on both sides, pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the drizzelge from the links, it should be a rich mahogany color full of flavor.. heat the red grease back up and add the flour and whisk constantly until the flour is well cooked, maybe 3 minutes?

You should now have a basic roux.. Now start adding the cooking broth from the beans, whisk, whisk, whisk, 

Taste, season, add the cream and eventually you will have a smooth and spicy veloute to dress the beans.

PLATE IT!,    

slice the warm chorizo, ladle some beans

and pour on the gravy, and add the mustard greens with red onions, garlic and red wine vinegar...OK the greens are not on the recipe list cause this is just too easy to make, you're on your own there....

Sprinkle a bit of aleppo pepper flakes on the beans, grind some pepper on the greens, serve it.

Unreal comfort food, satisfying, spicy, and just enough complexity to keep you palate interested.

Eat well, Eat hearty