• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Skillet Fried Soup Beans

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

waarp8nt

Smidgin Injun
MLF Supporter
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
1,082
Reaction score
2,264
Location
East of the Kaskaskia River in Illinois Country
A friend and I were talking about our mom's cooking. Told him I made soup beans and froze the left overs so I could have them again in a week or two. He said they never had left over soup beans when he was young as his mom would fry them up like potato cakes the next day. He said he liked the soup bean cakes / fritters more than the bean soup the first day. My mom made potato cakes and they were one of my favorites. Anyone's family make potato cake style soup beans? He said it was simple, she would throw in some oil or lard get it hot and cook the soup beans until brown on each side. Sounds interesting to me, I assume most of the moisture would need to be cooked out for a thicker soup bean to get started? How do you make them?
 
A friend and I were talking about our mom's cooking. Told him I made soup beans and froze the left overs so I could have them again in a week or two. He said they never had left over soup beans when he was young as his mom would fry them up like potato cakes the next day. He said he liked the soup bean cakes / fritters more than the bean soup the first day. My mom made potato cakes and they were one of my favorites. Anyone's family make potato cake style soup beans? He said it was simple, she would throw in some oil or lard get it hot and cook the soup beans until brown on each side. Sounds interesting to me, I assume most of the moisture would need to be cooked out for a thicker soup bean to get started? How do you make them?
I've never had them that way, but we did something similar one New Year's Dinner. We had the traditional black eye peas & collard greens, but we also had the fryer set up from a Christmas turkey!

So a buddy of mine took a couple cups of the cooked beans, drained, and mashed them into a paste with a little flour and a few spoonfuls of whipped egg - less than a whole one because of the small amount of beans. In your case, I'd guess you'd take them out of the soup stock. Some seasonings were added, but I don't remember which ones, probably just S&P and maybe some garlic. Then we grabbed a bit of the paste, rolled it like you would a meat ball, mashed it a little flat, and threw it in the hot oil!

It only took a minute to make some delicious black eye pea fritters. The same could be done in a skillet with deep oil or just enough to brown the sides and cook the egg & flour binder.

EDIT: We also whipped up a "gormey ay-oh-lee." :) Duke's mayo mixed with lemon juice, Texas Pete, and some Old Bay. Good bean fritter dip.
 
I've never had them that way, but we did something similar one New Year's Dinner. We had the traditional black eye peas & collard greens, but we also had the fryer set up from a Christmas turkey!

So a buddy of mine took a couple cups of the cooked beans, drained, and mashed them into a paste with a little flour and a few spoonfuls of whipped egg - less than a whole one because of the small amount of beans. In your case, I'd guess you'd take them out of the soup stock. Some seasonings were added, but I don't remember which ones, probably just S&P and maybe some garlic. Then we grabbed a bit of the paste, rolled it like you would a meat ball, mashed it a little flat, and threw it in the hot oil!

It only took a minute to make some delicious black eye pea fritters. The same could be done in a skillet with deep oil or just enough to brown the sides and cook the egg & flour binder.

EDIT: We also whipped up a "gormey ay-oh-lee." :) Duke's mayo mixed with lemon juice, Texas Pete, and some Old Bay. Good bean fritter dip.

Thanks for your advise! I'm certainly going to try your method. Sounds really good! Especially the dip!!!

I did try to fry some of the beans, just beans in oil. I tried to speed up the thaw by throwing the beans in a pan and cooking some off like hamburger. It worked well the speed up the thawing of the beans. I then started another pan with corn oil on medium heat, once hot I moved a couple of spatulas full of beans over to the oil for frying. I had some difficulty keeping them together, so your method with the egg and flour would likely be much better for cooking up patties. I really had to brown my beans before flipping otherwise they would crumble. The fried beans were good, but I think they could be better, looking forward to trying the beans again tomorrow with the addition of eggs and flour as you suggested.

Did make corn bread on the wood stove and it turned out great! I did put foil over it to keep some heat in to help it finish the cooking.
20220115_101827.jpg
 
DO not know about the bean fritters, but my grandmother used to fry green beans in a bit of bacon grease, she called then leather jackets. I bet if you looked around a bit in Mexican recipes there would be a method for making bean patties.
 
Gents, windini recipe is it!

Cooked them using his method by first removing excess moisture, dip patties in egg then flour. While they were decent just putting a spatulas of beans in hot corn oil. The egg and flour mixture held the beans together much better. The flavor was good, I could see someone adding a topping or sauce of there choice. I simply enjoyed them plain.

I bet if you looked around a bit in Mexican recipes there would be a method for making bean patties.

Your grandmother's leather jackets sound good! Didn't have a lot of luck with Google search, did find a fried baked bean recipe. The fellow would drop in a spoonful at a time into the frier. Might try to search again since I didn't include Mexican or Spanish in the original search.
 
I will make a dish, "Dog's Body", basically a peas porridge. It makes thick savory porridge when flavored with onions, garlic and smoked ham shank. It's a hearty vegetable and in the morning the cooled Dog's Body can be shaped into patties to be heated for breakfast or lunch fare.
 
I cook pinto beans in the regular way to eat as a side. I drain some completely, mash them, add a little cayenne pepper, then add saltine cracker crumbs to make a paste think enough to hold together as patties. I roll those in more cracker crumbs and pan fry them until nicely browned. 'Tain't bad.

fajita+bean cake1.JPG

fajita+bean cake3.JPG

Spence
 
Oh man, I gotta experiment with some of these ideas, especially with black eyed peas which are my favorite bean.

Cowboy Kent Rollins has a Youtube video on 'poor man's sausage' which seems to be in the same vein. Apparently, it was a Depression/dust bowl recipe in his family when meat was scarce.

I described this thread to my wife. She said it sounded like southwest falafels! :) My Lebanese grandparents would have laughed at that.

Jeff
 
Oh man, I gotta experiment with some of these ideas, especially with black eyed peas which are my favorite bean.
I make my patties of black-eyed peas quite often, I agree, they can't be beat. I also make them of left-over mashed potatoes and white beans of various types.

Spence
 
Well I experimented with a I recipe online for fried baked beans "Use your Favorite" & "Simply drop them in the pan". They would not hold together, so I added some instant mashed potato flakes to thicken them up. The beans held together better, but didn't taste very well. Not my favorite, not necessarily an epic failure either as the dog didn't seem to mind.

These may not be too bad if you could drop them in a frier like hush puppies. Just didn't work out well in a skillet.
 
Just mash them up in the skillet with a bit of butter to make frijoles refrito to have with or in your burritos or other Mexican dish.
 
Back
Top