St. John Beans and Bacon

This dish is a marvel of economy and unfussiness. Do the beans (soaked overnight) in an Instant Pot (the standard "beans" setting: 1/2 hr + natural release) using the 1 quart/950 ml stock instead of water. (Paul Prudhomme: "Water's only for washing!") Rather than bouquet garni (good luck finding fresh herbs in Feb), I use them dried (1/2 tsp each thyme, sage, parsley & rosemary; 2 tsp chopped garlic) much later, at the start of Step 5, to maximize flavor.

For many years I have been following the advice of America's Test Kitchen when soaking beans. Their advice: Brine the beans! Dissolve 3 T salt in 4 Qt. cold water. Soak the beans overnight, 8-24 hours. The result will be that the beans have a very creamy texture that is to die for. I highly recommend this any time you plan to use dried beans in a recipe like this.

no need to "yuck" someone else's "yum".

Water is a fine base for soups and stews, M.Prudhomme respectfully contradicted. It's better than many a package chicken stock with its list of ingredients.. There are fresh herbs all over the place in supermarkets! For me, with a Boston childhood of baked beans every Saturday night, I like them cooked slow and made thick. Also, like a Bostonian (Manhattan clam chowder, oi), find adding tomatoes to the beans ... unappetizing. It's great to see this food given it's proper respect.

RE: stock vs water: We can agree to differ, but this recipe uses 1 qt stock anyway: I merely suggest using it at step 1. RE: tomato: Worldwide, non-prosperous cultures that consume meat sparingly use tomato to add umami to legumes. Think black beans with salsa (Mexico); chickpea cholé (North India/Pakistan); Pasta Fazool (Southern Italy/Sicily). This recipe resembles the last somewhat: foodnetwork.com/recipes/jeff-mauro/pasta-fazool-3363378 .

Yes, I agree that adding tomatoes is unappetizing. But I like that this version is not as sweet (no molasses or sugar!) as our Boston beans. I'll make these going forward and abandon the beans of childhood.

Mostly agree with Joyce as to water v stock for this dish, and with Prakash as to soaking v Instapot. An enameled cast iron stew-pot. Vote for pancetta instead of salt pork, tho cut up pork jowl if you have access will do handsomely. The recipe as written sounds delicious tho if you do use pork jowl or salt pork you'd do well to hold or at least minimize the salt. Finally and most importantly you'd do well to bake in lowish (300 degree) oven, and let it bake all afternoon if you have time.

it's fine to prefer one dish to another (don't we all?) but if you're having a "one note bowl of gloppy sludge" then you aren't having real new england chowdah. as a rhode islander i turn my back on our namesake chowdah and think the new england variety is king. but it's also what most people imagine when they think of chowder, and thus is most widely emulated, which means there is a lot of gloppy sludge out there indeed. (just as all the bad pizza out there does not mean all pizza is bad ;))

Some of us like both styles of chowder and don’t denigrate either one.

Go Sox! Manhattan clam chowder should be named something other than chowdah; maybe then the arguments would stop. It's really more cioppino than chowdah, and, in its way, as good as genuine clam chowdah, though not as good as fish chowdah made with "trash fish" (hake, cusk, etc.), so there!

As a bean lover, I have adopted Diana Kennedy's foolproof frijoles de olla method: don't soak the beans, just cook them. The overnight soak is a disincentive to many a home cook and judging by the perfect results I get, thanks to Kennedy, completely unnecessary.

Do the beans (soaked overnight) in an Instant Pot (the standard "beans" setting: 1/2 hr + natural release) using the 1 quart/950 ml stock instead of water. (Paul Prudhomme: "Water's only for washing!") Rather than bouquet garni, I use them dried (1/2 tsp each thyme, sage, parsley & rosemary; 2 tsp chopped garlic) much later, at the start of Step 5, to maximize flavor.

I am making this recipe today and will add a note after I have eaten the bean and bacon stew, but I wanted to mention to those like Maeve who don’t like the sweetness of Boston baked beans: Try Julia Child’s recipe in The Way To Cook. It has no brown sugar, just molasses and Dijon mustard so the beans are yummy but not sweet.

I substituted dry large lima beans for the white beans, spooned it over thick-cut sourdough toast, and topped it with a poached egg and diced scallions — amazing.

Okay, gotta add my two bits. Ditch step three. To your bean cooking water, add the bouquet garni, some salt...Yes, and some aromatics (garlic, onion, celery, carrot, fennel, whatever you’ve got). The resulting pot liquor is a fabulous stock for this dish. Plus, the beans will already be so flavorful, you might have a hard time saving them for the rest of this heavenly recipe!