Stewed Fresh Butterbeans

Deep Run Roots

I have always wondered what the difference is between lima beans and butter beans, but thankfully Vivian addresses that in her book, Deep Run Roots. Butter beans ARE lima beans, just picked when they are small. So if you can find baby lima beans in the grocery store freezer section, they're the exact same thing.

This recipe can be used for any "fresh" (or fresh-frozen) legume, though. We have always cooked butter beans and field peas in a similar fashion, which might be the reason I never even considered making this recipe for the channel before. But when I needed this for another recipe (coming next week), I decided to go ahead and show you how to make these.

It's hard for a southerner to believe that not everyone grew up with stewed butter beans, but even though I did not, I've been cooking these for my whole married life. So if you've never made fresh butter beans, try this first. They're nicely cooked without being too mushy. (Not that there's anything wrong with mushy butter beans in my book.)

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[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with Heather today we're working out of
[00:09]: Deep Run Roots again
[00:10]: um we hadn't worked from it for a pretty
[00:13]: long time but now it's the summer and
[00:15]: there's all this fresh produce and it's
[00:17]: a great book for that because everything
[00:18]: is sort of divided into sections based
[00:21]: on
[00:22]: the produce or the ingredients that it
[00:25]: uses uh so it's it's nice to find a lot
[00:29]: of things that are in season here now
[00:33]: um and I don't think we've made much
[00:35]: from this chapter before which is
[00:37]: interesting because we really like them
[00:39]: but this is from the
[00:41]: beans and peas chapter
[00:44]: and today we're going to be making
[00:46]: stewed fresh butter beans this is a very
[00:48]: basic recipe it's a lot like I would
[00:51]: normally make but
[00:53]: she uses like at least one ingredient
[00:55]: that I wouldn't normally use so that'll
[00:57]: be interesting I don't know how much it
[00:59]: will add to it but whatever
[01:01]: so we're going to start with
[01:03]: butter beans you can also use this same
[01:05]: method for field peas Fresh Field peas
[01:09]: not dried ones
[01:11]: we're starting with butter beans as you
[01:13]: can tell they are frozen they're still a
[01:15]: little bit Frozen
[01:16]: um we put these up last year parboil
[01:21]: them uh blanch them horrible whatever
[01:24]: you want to call it briefly and then we
[01:26]: freeze them in quart size bags laid flat
[01:31]: and then we have butter beans for the
[01:33]: year so
[01:35]: we're starting with these
[01:39]: I'm not too worried that they are still
[01:41]: kind of Frozen
[01:42]: and in case you're wondering like I was
[01:45]: butter beans and lima beans are the same
[01:48]: thing but butter beans are harvested
[01:50]: when they're young whereas lima beans
[01:52]: are usually bigger so I'm sure there are
[01:54]: plenty of varieties of them but that
[01:56]: it's not something that like field peas
[01:59]: there are lots of different varieties um
[02:03]: pink eye Dixie something anyway
[02:07]: uh
[02:10]: Sea Island I don't know I've seen lots
[02:12]: of different varieties of field please I
[02:14]: love them all I don't really care but
[02:18]: butter beans I don't usually see anybody
[02:19]: mentioning what variety they are
[02:22]: I assume there's more than one I don't
[02:24]: know if you know let me know
[02:27]: um I'm going to add some bay leaves
[02:29]: that's what I don't normally add to my
[02:33]: butter beans or field peas we'll see
[02:36]: um and we're going to add a little bit
[02:37]: of pepper
[02:43]: and
[02:45]: you'll notice we are not putting any
[02:48]: salt in this yet
[02:50]: um we don't put salt in this until
[02:53]: they're pretty much
[02:55]: cooked already
[02:57]: I usually would salt mine in the
[02:59]: beginning
[02:60]: but I do know that for some beans
[03:04]: especially dried beans you usually don't
[03:06]: salt them because they won't get as
[03:08]: tender
[03:09]: they won't cook as well they won't get
[03:11]: as tender when they're cooking if you
[03:13]: salt them up front so you tend to Salt
[03:15]: those later it doesn't usually make a
[03:18]: difference for me with these kind of
[03:19]: beans but we're going to follow the
[03:20]: recipe
[03:21]: so all I have to do now is add some
[03:24]: water
[03:34]: so here's our water I have measured it
[03:37]: roughly because there is a measurement
[03:40]: in here and it is cool water whatever
[03:42]: came out of the cold tap on my uh sink
[03:45]: right now but uh that is
[03:48]: it for the ingredients except for salt
[03:51]: which will come later
[03:53]: um and I'm going to take this over the
[03:55]: stove and we're going to
[03:57]: bring it up to a boil and I will
[03:59]: probably just bring that camera over
[04:01]: there
[04:02]: because there's something we need to do
[04:04]: sort of during the first 10 minutes of
[04:06]: it boiling so
[04:11]: I'll show you that
[04:12]: as it happens okay so these have just
[04:14]: come up to a boil and I'm going to turn
[04:16]: them down a little bit but we do want
[04:19]: them at a good boil for this and
[04:22]: the goal for me now is to for the first
[04:25]: 10 minutes of boiling
[04:28]: to
[04:29]: skim
[04:31]: sort of the scum that rises it's not too
[04:36]: bad right now
[04:38]: but it will sort of collect
[04:41]: on the sides I have a little bowl to put
[04:44]: as much in as I can right now it seems
[04:45]: like it's mostly the um
[04:48]: the pepper kind of stuck in there but it
[04:51]: might get all the pepper in there I
[04:53]: don't know we'll see I don't usually
[04:55]: bother skimming the scum but
[05:01]: I will today I'm not going to show you
[05:04]: this for 10 minutes so if it starts
[05:07]: building up I will definitely turn this
[05:09]: camera back on
[05:11]: it's been about 10 minutes I've done a
[05:14]: little bit of scraping of the scum but
[05:16]: it never got real bad in fact you can
[05:18]: see that's about all that I took out I
[05:21]: have definitely seen it where it gets
[05:22]: worse and field peas in my experience
[05:25]: get much worse but it might depend on
[05:26]: how well
[05:28]: you have
[05:31]: clean them rinse them how much they've
[05:35]: been boiled before they were frozen I
[05:36]: don't know if they're fresh you do want
[05:38]: to make sure you rinse them well but so
[05:41]: now we've turned the heat down and we're
[05:43]: going for a good simmer and we're going
[05:45]: to put the lid on
[05:46]: in about 20 minutes 15 to 20 minutes I
[05:49]: think I'm gonna go for about 20 because
[05:50]: I have a timer
[05:51]: all ready for
[05:53]: 21 minutes so I'm gonna go about 20
[05:55]: minutes
[05:57]: this has been almost 20 minutes over 15
[06:01]: a little less than 20. that's what it
[06:03]: was like when I took the lid off she
[06:05]: says this you to go for a quick simmer I
[06:08]: ended up turning it down
[06:09]: to about a three on my stove I'm pretty
[06:12]: sure that's done and at this point we
[06:15]: turn it off
[06:17]: and
[06:19]: excuse mom
[06:21]: my camera work while I reach
[06:24]: um we add
[06:28]: the salt
[06:30]: and yeah that was great camera work I'm
[06:34]: going to Stir It Up let it sit for 20
[06:36]: minutes in the salty cooking liquid
[06:41]: before you are ready to serve it and so
[06:44]: we'll take a taste test in about 20
[06:46]: minutes all right so these have been
[06:47]: sitting for about 20 minutes in these
[06:50]: now salted water
[06:52]: cooking liquid
[06:53]: and I'm going to take a little taste
[06:60]: they're not over salted
[07:02]: not undersalted they're sort of just
[07:05]: just right
[07:06]: which is good
[07:08]: they seem nicely cooked soft in the
[07:12]: middle they do have the the skin is a
[07:14]: little
[07:17]: tougher if you've never had
[07:20]: butter beans the skin is a little bit
[07:22]: tough but it's not
[07:23]: off-putting or anything we are not going
[07:26]: to eat these like this
[07:28]: if you are she suggests stirring in a
[07:32]: pad of butter but other than that this
[07:35]: is a nice basic
[07:37]: stewed butter bean recipe that you can
[07:39]: then use for a lot of different things
[07:41]: and as she says
[07:43]: a lot of recipes in this chapter
[07:46]: use this as a base where you've
[07:48]: pre-cooked your beans or your field peas
[07:50]: or whatever
[07:52]: and
[07:54]: then you use them in a different way
[07:58]: so
[07:59]: next week you should be able to see us
[08:02]: use these in at least one different way
[08:05]: we'll see if we
[08:07]: do any of the other recipes this summer
[08:10]: but yeah this is our stewed fresh butter
[08:12]: beans I think they are perfectly
[08:15]: adequate I don't know that the bay leaf
[08:18]: really adds a lot but maybe
[08:23]: I can certainly smell it but I'm not
[08:26]: sure I can taste it
[08:28]: if you think bay leaves do something
[08:29]: please tell me what you think in the
[08:31]: comments down below but if you've
[08:34]: enjoyed watching me make this please
[08:35]: give me a thumbs up hit the Subscribe
[08:37]: button and come back and watch me make
[08:40]: something else next week
[08:41]: using these
[08:43]: foreign