Bean Hole Anasazi Chili Soup
Heirloom beans, ham, and chile, cooked slow in a dutch oven while you do something else.
- calories
- 480
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 10, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 180 min
- total time
- 200 min
- water
- 1200 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Anasazi or mixed heirloom beans | 28 oz dry | soaked overnight at home or in camp |
|---|---|---|
| Smoked ham hocks | 3 large | cured, so they hold a day out of the cooler |
| Canned diced tomatoes | two 14 oz cans | |
| White onions | 3 large | diced; keep a third raw for the top |
| Chile peppers | 4 medium | seeded and diced, half held back |
| Garlic powder | 3 tbsp | |
| Chile powder | 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp | |
| Paprika | 1 tbsp | only if the broth stays pale |
| Coarse sea salt | 2 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | 20 grinds | |
| Lemon juice | 1 tbsp |
Method
- Sort the beans for stones, rinse until the water runs clear, then cover by two inches of cold water and soak overnight.
- Drain. Put the beans in a 12-inch dutch oven with about 5 quarts of fresh water and the ham hocks. Bring to a simmer over the fire, then pull most of the coals so it barely bubbles.
- Hold that simmer, partly covered, about two hours. The beans should be nearly tender and the water dark.
- Fish out the hocks, strip the meat off the bone, and drop the meat back in with the tomatoes, two thirds of the onion, and half the chiles.
- Cook until the onion goes translucent and the chiles soften. Add the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chile powder, then wait ten minutes before tasting.
- If the broth is still thin and grey, another half tablespoon of chile powder and the paprika will fix the color. Finish with the lemon juice.
- Top each bowl with the reserved raw onion and chile.
This is a car-camping recipe and stays one. Dry heirloom beans need hours of steady low heat and a lot of water, which is exactly what a dutch oven over coals gives you and exactly what a canister stove does not. Everything else is shelf-stable; only the hocks and the soaked beans need the cooler.
The long simmer is what pulls the ham fat and gelatin into the water, and that is where the body comes from. Salt goes in late on purpose, after the beans are already tender, and the raw onion and chile on top exist to put something sharp against three hours of soft. The lemon does the same job from the other direction.
Packing
Pre-soak the beans at home and carry them wet in a sealed jar in the cooler; that removes the overnight step in camp. Measure the spices into one jar. Hocks stay in the cooler until they go in the pot.
Variations
- Bean hole method: burn a fire down in a pit, bury the sealed oven in coals and dirt, and leave it twelve hours. Start it at 4am and dinner cooks itself.
- Above ground, ring the oven with charcoal to hold roughly 300F and check it every couple of hours.
- Swap the hocks for a smoked turkey leg, or leave them out and add a tablespoon of oil for a vegan pot.
https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/pawclaws-own-adobe-mills-anasazi-brothers-moki-bean-mix-soup.216008