A little ways back, we had the pure delight of spending a few hours in the kitchen with the one and only Jonathon Sawyer. The gregarious chef talked a mile a minute about everything from his new fine-dining restaurant (Trentina, which recently opened in Cleveland) to curing egg yolks ("not hard at all," he assured us) to Cappelletti (a newly imported bitter akin to Campari and Aperol, which we quickly embraced). And yet, even with a cured beef eye of round simmering away on the stove in the Bon Appétit test kitchen ("I love the idea of boiling meat being sexy—like, who boils beef?"), the thing that caught our attention was the care that Sawyer gave to humble black beans.
Jonathon Sawyer's bean method:
1. Have You Bean Good?
Sawyer brought local black beans with him from Ohio. "Seven dollars a pound might seem crazy," says Sawyer, "but this is the caviar of legume." Here at BA, we love the beans from Rancho Gordo.
2. Have a Nice Soak
Sawyer recommends soaking 2 cups of beans in 3 quarts of water overnight or up to 24 hours, on your countertop. There are lots of reasons to soak beans: it makes them easier to digest, expedites the cooking process, and helps the beans to cook more evenly without breaking.
3. Slow and Low, That Is the Tempo. After removing anything that's floating on the surface in the pot of soaking beans, stir the beans, then strain, discarding liquid. Transfer beans to a large saucepot, cover them with fresh water by two inches, and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. At no point should the beans ever boil: Gentle, patient heat helps keep the beans fully intact instead of tempting them into mush. Once the beans have cooked, season the water liberally with salt. Let them rest in the seasoned cooking liquid for 10 minutes.
4. Marinate on This
While some recipes call for cooking the beans in aromatics, Sawyer prefers to add these subtle flavors afterward, essentially marinating the beans in an infused oil. He adds chopped shallot, garlic, rosemary, sage, Fresno chile, and bay leaves to a mason jar along with the strained, cooked beans, covers it all completely with olive oil, then stirs to disperse the aromatics evenly.
5. Patience Is a Virtue
Let the beans cool to room temp in the sealed jar (this will take a few hours), then store the jar in the fridge. "These will probably be way better in three weeks," Sawyer says. They need plenty of time to soak up the flavored oil; Sawyer stores his in his fridge for months. On his visit, he used a few precious beans—their texture perfectly firm yet creamy, each one a distinct entity rather than a bowl of mush—as a garnish for thin slices of the carne salata (that round of beef that had been simmering on the stove, which Sawyer then rolled in juniper ash and ground spicebush) but they're compelling and flavorful enough to eat one at a time: "This is the type of thing you could put out on a charcuterie plate," says the chef.