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Mexican Pot Beans with Chipotle Beef Stew

Chipotle Beef Stew on Mexican Pot Beans

Adapted from Margarita Carrillo Arronte
Course Entree
Cuisine Mexican
Author TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

For the beans:

  • 2 cups dried pinto beans or a similar pink or red bean, soaked overnight
  • water to cover by 2 inches
  • 1 white or yellow onion, chopped
  • 4-6 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1-2 T bacon grease
  • 1 t sea salt, plus more to taste

For the stew:

  • 9 oz bacon, chopped
  • 1 1/2 - 2 lbs boneless stew meat, such as chuck, cubed
  • 1 12 oz bottle lager, preferably Mexican
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced
  • 1 T sea salt
  • 1 1/2 t ground black pepper

For the garnishes:

  • crumbled bacon
  • chopped cilantro
  • chopped green onions, green part only
  • lemon wedges
  • crumbled queso fresco
  • diced avocado (I forgot)
  • warm flour tortillas

Instructions

For the beans:

  1. Soak the dried beans in cold water overnight.

  2. The next morning add the beans and their soaking water to a large dutch oven. Add the bacon grease (I used grease from the stew recipe--you could also use lard) chopped onion, minced garlic and bay leaves. Add enough water to cover by 2 inches. Place on a burner over medium high heat.

  3. Bring to a boil. Let boil for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat to a bare simmer. Cover. Check on every few hours to see if the beans are getting tender and to make sure they are still covered by water.
  4. When the beans are nearly tender, add the salt.
  5. Continue cooking until they are perfectly tender. If this is long before dinner, just set aside and reheat before dinner.

For the stew:

  1. Place the bacon in a skillet (or cooktop safe slow cooker insert or Dutch oven--if using a Dutch oven preheat the oven to 300 F) over medium low heat. Cook until crispy and then remove with a slotted spoon. Set aside.
  2. Pour some of the bacon grease off into the beans--leave about 1-2 tablespoons.
  3. Brown the beef for about 7 minutes in the same pot, now at medium high heat.
  4. Add the beer and let it cook for 2 minutes.
  5. Add the chicken stock, chipotle chiles, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Place the slow cooker insert onto the slow cooker base, or scrape the ingredients into the slow cooker insert. You can also just cover a Dutch oven and place it in the oven. Cook for 3 hours on high, 6-8 hours on low, or 3 hours in a 300 F oven.
  6. To serve ladle some of the pot beans into a bowl. Then ladle some stew over the beans and top with the remaining garnishes.