Birthdays past (4)

I don't know if you agree, but to my taste a big pot of lima beans, which are very popular in the Carolinas, is a great birthday dinner. I grew up eating lima beans, butter beans, pinto beans, navy beans, field peas, and black-eyed peas... and other beans. I cooked this birthday pot of giant lima beans overnight in the slow cooker. I added duck legs/thighs and Toulouse pork sausages to the pot, along with bay leaves, a couple of cayenne peppers, allspice berries, black peppercorns, parsley stems, a carrot, an onion, some garlic cloves, and salt. Everything cooked at low temperature for 12 hours.

As you can see, the beans didn't disintegrate into mush. They held their shape. The skins were not tough, and the beans were creamy inside. The sausages were tender too. As for the duck, the meat was falling off the bones. The broth had a nice brown color and good flavor.

We of course have leftovers. That's a good thing, because I just found a recipe for curried lima beans. In France, these limas are called pois du Cap — Capetown peas. But they are beans, not peas like garden peas. There's a French bean called haricots de Soissons that are very similar in look, taste, and texture.