4 (6-ounce) pieces beef, pork, or chicken cutlets, very thinly pounded
1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup bread crumbs
Canola or vegetable oil, for frying
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 ripe medium Hass avocados, halved, pitted, and sliced
4 homemade or store-bought cemita buns (see note), sesame-seed buns, or brioche buns, halved
2 cups shredded Queso Oaxaca from 1 (14-ounce) ball of cheese (see note), or fresh mozzarella or string cheese, divided
12 raw onion rings (about 1/4 inch thick)
4 chioptle chiles from 1 (7-ounce) can whole chipotle chiles in adobo, or pickled jalapeños from 1 (12-ounce) can
20 leaves papalo (see note), or fresh cilantro leaves
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
See, the thing with beans cooked in molasses is that they tenderize very, very slowly (more on this later). Even after leaving them for hours in the oven, you can end up with individual beans floating in a thin broth. But Boston baked beans should, at the very least, be coated in a thickened, glaze-like sauce. Some recipes resort to adding tomato paste or ketchup to thicken the broth, and I’ll admit that, in the process of testing this recipe, I considered doing that more than a couple of times myself.
In the end, I decided to stick firm to tradition and find a way to get my beans soft and my sauce thick without relying on modern add-ins. That meant a baked bean recipe with nothing but beans, molasses, pork, onion, and mustard (and, okay, a couple of aromatics).
