Gonzalo Guzmán’s Pork-Braised Butter Beans With Eggs

Gonzalo Guzmán’s Pork-Braised Butter Beans With Eggs
Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
Total Time
2 hours
Rating
4(336)
Notes
Read community notes

Gonzalo Guzmán is the chef at Nopalito, a Mexican restaurant with two locations in San Francisco. His bright take on frijoles puercos, or pork and beans, is inspired by a version he once tasted in northern Mexico. It involves butter beans simmered with chile and onion until tender and plump, mixed up with crumbled chorizo and scrambled eggs. The result is a delicious, one-pot meal with a fresh garnish of cheese and herbs, and it makes for an ideal breakfast, lunch or dinner, ideally with a stack of warm tortillas on the side.

Featured in: A Taste of Home in One Pot

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 6ounces (1 cup) dried butter beans
  • 1white onion, halved
  • 3cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1dried guajillo chile
  • 1teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1tablespoon olive oil
  • 2slices bacon, chopped
  • ½teaspoon chile powder
  • 8ounces Mexican chorizo, casings removed
  • 6eggs
  • Queso fresco, crumbled
  • Cilantro leaves, chopped
  • Spring onions, sliced
  • 1pickled jalapeño, sliced
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a large pot, combine beans with 5 cups water, half the onion, the garlic and chile. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and partly cover the pot with the lid. Cook until the beans are completely tender, 1 to 1½ hours, adding more water if it reduces below the level of the beans. Fish out and discard the garlic, onion and chile; it’s fine if a few small pieces remain. Season with salt while the beans are hot.

  2. Step 2

    Chop the other half of the onion. Add oil to a large skillet over medium heat with the bacon, and sauté until the onion is soft and the bacon has rendered some fat, about 5 minutes. Add chile powder and chorizo, breaking up the sausage into small pieces with a spoon, until it’s cooked through.

  3. Step 3

    Break eggs into pork mixture, and stir to scramble. Once the eggs are cooked through, stir in the beans and bean cooking liquid, and simmer gently 5-10 minutes. Add a splash of water if needed, so some chile-stained broth bubbles just below the surface of the beans. Taste, and adjust seasoning with salt. Garnish generously with crumbled queso fresco, cilantro, spring onions and pickled jalapeño.

Ratings

4 out of 5
336 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

If you live near a TJ's, WFM or even a lot of big supermarkets you can find the vegetarian version under the TJ's label or brand name "Soyrizo." Heresy, I know, but there's really little difference in taste or texture, since Mexican chorizo is finely ground and the primary flavors are the spices.

They really are different items. Spanish is like a dry sausage, while Mexican is soft and "melts" into the dish.

I don't like eggs very much, so I made this recipe without eggs, but with one large-ish russet potato b/c potatoes and chorizo is a combination to die for. Followed everything else exactly. Easy and tasty! Bulkier and more carby with the spud, of course, but a meltingly soft cube of russet potato is always lovely. Plenty for a second dinner for the family, and kept very well for the next day, an added bonus. Definitely plan to repeat.

Good results for substitution can be found by using pretty much any fresh pork sausage, as directed in the recipe, and adding cumin, ground black pepper and cayenne or other hot pepper to taste. It's nice to sauté the spices with the meat before mixing in too thoroughly so that they cook at high enough heat.

hmm cheat hint, just buy some chile beans already cooked in a can, then use cooked crumbled bacon and squeeze out some chorizo in a casing, crack eggs into chorizo, stir to scramble add beans adjust taste s and p; then simply garnish with cheese of choice, herb of choice, green onions chopped or chives, and some jalapeno pickled or regulat your choice!:)

You can easily "quick pickle" jalapeños yourself at home.

Look up a mexican quick pickle recipe. Takes about 30 minutes on the stove top, then perhaps a couple hours cooling down in the refrigerator.

See Step 2. I made it the other day and I thought it was pretty clear...start sautéing the bacon (chopped, per ingredient list) in oil, add the onion.

It's ok to sub dried New Mexico or California chile peppers, in a pinch. Many grocery stores carry these in celophane packages near the spices or ethnic foods.

One irritant I have with recipes that call for chorizo is that often the distinction isn't made between Mexican or Iberian (Spanish, Portg.) because they are indeed so different. Spanish is cured, more like salami, and partially cooked already, Mexican is an uncooked sausage using a palette of spices typically used in Mexico. Uncooked Italian would work though considerably different in flavor. Or you could do as suggested and try making it yourself. You could order spices online if needed.

I haven't made this yet, but I think a fresh italian sausage would probably work. You might also try just plain ground pork with a high fat content and seasoning more aggressively with chile, garlic, and oregano.

Try a quick soak technique by putting the beans in the water and bring to a boil with the lid on, then remove from heat, covered, for an hour. Then proceed with the recipe, except add the salt to the water with the garlic, chile and onion and bring to boil over medium heat and simmer uncovered for 1 to 11/2 hours, adding water as necessary to keep beans covered.

This was good. I made my own chorizo. Next time I will definitely add another guajillo to the beans; my broth turned out much paler and less rich-looking than the photo. I used a full teaspoon of ancho chile powder. I might try omitting the eggs. I liked the flavor, but the bits of scramble made it look slightly unappetizing. The garnishes helped doll it up, though, and in the end it turned out to be a comforting and pretty easy dinner for a cool evening.

Big hit with the family.
Doubled everything, planning for leftovers. Because of this, I scrambled eggs separately and served them over the top/on the side.
Used whichever wide flat bean I found in the Goya section of the market - may have been dried limas, not butter beans, but worked well.
Not very hot; some family members added hot sauce. But good, rich flavor. I think bulk sausage rather than smoked/solid sausage is a must.

Used big lima beans, canned diced green chilis, and 1 lb. of fresh chorizo (from WFM), and this turned out wonderfully.

If you cannot find Mexican chorizo and you're a little ambitious, you could make your own. There are 2 recipes here, best probably to use the L.A. style https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013312-la-style-chorizo

Or you could use this, which - if you use ground pork, is quite simple. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/01/easy-fresh-mexican-chorizo.html

Used big lima beans, canned diced green chilis, and 1 lb. of fresh chorizo (from WFM), and this turned out wonderfully.

I don't like eggs very much, so I made this recipe without eggs, but with one large-ish russet potato b/c potatoes and chorizo is a combination to die for. Followed everything else exactly. Easy and tasty! Bulkier and more carby with the spud, of course, but a meltingly soft cube of russet potato is always lovely. Plenty for a second dinner for the family, and kept very well for the next day, an added bonus. Definitely plan to repeat.

Why call this pork-braised? It's not.

hmm cheat hint, just buy some chile beans already cooked in a can, then use cooked crumbled bacon and squeeze out some chorizo in a casing, crack eggs into chorizo, stir to scramble add beans adjust taste s and p; then simply garnish with cheese of choice, herb of choice, green onions chopped or chives, and some jalapeno pickled or regulat your choice!:)

Not sure how you can call this a one-pot when you engage both the pot and the skillet to saute in.

Why must you fish out the onion, garlic and chile?

You fish them out so there's not a whole dried chile, a huge half an onion, and whole cloves of garlic in the finished dish. Those ingredients are just to flavor the beans as they cook. Have you ever tried munching on a dry chile, stem and all? Not delicious.

I used flageolet beans I had already cooked (they had tomato and garlic and parsley in with them) didn't include bacon and eggs, and did add a diced potato to the cooking chorizo. This was really good - comforting and greasy and delicious.

i did not like how the eggs turned unappealingly grainy in the dish

I wanted to be able to have this on a workday morning, so I made the beans and sausage mixture ahead and then placed in separate containers. To serve two of us I simply took a third from each container and placed them in a hot pan. Then I added 2 eggs and topped off with the remaining ingredients. Came together in a few minutes and i still have two meals for later in the week.

Big hit with the family.
Doubled everything, planning for leftovers. Because of this, I scrambled eggs separately and served them over the top/on the side.
Used whichever wide flat bean I found in the Goya section of the market - may have been dried limas, not butter beans, but worked well.
Not very hot; some family members added hot sauce. But good, rich flavor. I think bulk sausage rather than smoked/solid sausage is a must.

Wondering whether you can make this ahead of time? I'm inclined to leave out the eggs until just before serving, but perhaps it's ok to scramble them in? Would love feedback--thanks!

I have been cooking these beans for more than four hours, and they are still crunchy. I should have soaked them overnight.

I got nothing for dinner now. Irritating. I generally trust NYT recipes.

Try a quick soak technique by putting the beans in the water and bring to a boil with the lid on, then remove from heat, covered, for an hour. Then proceed with the recipe, except add the salt to the water with the garlic, chile and onion and bring to boil over medium heat and simmer uncovered for 1 to 11/2 hours, adding water as necessary to keep beans covered.

I wish authors would specify which type of chile powder: just chile, e.g., ancho, or blended powder which includes other spices.

The instructions are incomplete - is the bacon supposed to be chopped? Is the onion added to the oil or to the bacon? I figured it out, but whoever wrote this recipe was lazy.

See Step 2. I made it the other day and I thought it was pretty clear...start sautéing the bacon (chopped, per ingredient list) in oil, add the onion.

Both of those directions are clearly written in the recipe.

Has anyone tried it without the eggs? I assume it changes the texture, but wonder about any change in flavor.

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