Mexicans eat lots of beans (as indeed to Texans!)
They eat them in many shapes, forms and guises. One of the strangest (to our minds certainly) is what’s known as Refried Beans.
I mean, “What’s a refried bean?” Well, a refried bean is a bean that has already been cooked, but the second cooking (NOT the second coming!) is frying. So the beans are boiled (to make them edible – but not necessarily by your good self as you may choose to use tinned beans in which case they are cooked by someone else).
The Chinese have a similar concept – they have dishes that are, for example, twice-boiled, which just means that they are cooked twice (nothing really controversial in that because the word ‘biscuit’ itself in French means (surprise, surprise) twice-cooked and strictly, biscuits are baked twice.
So now we know where we are, refried beans should be dead easy. Tins of refried beans are OK ( and I mean that) if you don’t need lots but once you need a load, make your own, and forget tins. A 500gm/1lb packet of dried black or pinto beans costing pennies will make MASSES of refried beans and be so much nicer.
So when do we use black and when pinto (incidentally if you can’t find pinto, use borlotti – strictly speaking, they’re not the same but you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference). My understanding of the situation is that in Texas they use pinto beans and in Mexico (as in most of South and Central America), black beans abound, quite simply because they are cheap.
The bacon is of course optional so doing veggie with refried beans is dead easy.
What they are fried in inevitably matters in such simple dish ( and I don’t mean the shape of the pan!) Any old oil is OK but if you use something with a bit of flavour then you make them jump off the page – so a good-quality olive oil is OK, butter is better, but best of all is lard or something like goose-fat, and you’ve got something to be proud of.
The perfect side for any Tex/Mex or BBQ dish m they’re dead easy so do, please, have a go.