Jack Stack Barbecue Beans
Recipe courtesy Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue of Kansas City and posted on the Food Network web site

FMM: I have not tried this recipe, but the baked beans I ate at Fiorella's Jack Stack Barbecue in Kansas City were the best I have ever had. The waitress told me they cook their beans, called Hickory Pit Beans, underneath their barbecuing pork. They had a great barbecue flavor and chunks of barbecued pork were mixed through.

A video on the Food Network shows the chef at Jack Stack:

• cooking the beans in a very large rectangular metal pan under the barbecuing meats for 6 hours.
• The video shows the chef mixing white sugar, barbecue sauce, and chili powder with beans that looked like they may have been dried beans that had probably been soaked overnight, although it was hard to see what the beans looked like - they could have been canned.
• The whole mixture was quite soupy. These were then put into the smoker.
• Brisket burnt ends, that were run through a machine to break them up, were tossed on top once the beans cooked a bit and mixed in later once the beans were taken out of the oven.

The following recipe from Jack Stack Barbecue, although it was on the same web page as the video, doesn't seem to quite match what was shown in the video.

1 (32-ounce) can pork and beans
1 cup finely chopped brisket
1 cup BBQ sauce (recommended: Jack Stack Original)
4 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water

Combine all ingredients in a 4-quart saucepan. Over medium heat, bring beans to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Cook beans for 20 minutes or until a thick, soupy consistency is reached. Serve.

This recipe also works well on a grill, letting the great outdoors permeate and enhance the flavor of the beans as they cook.

4 - 6 servings