what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

i need help with my stovetop pinto beans
i am relativelt new to cooking dried beans from scratch but i always hate the way mine taste!

last weekend this is what i did
i quicksoaked in the instant pot bc i forgot to soak them overnight
i put them in a big heavy pot & covered with enough water to cover by 2 inches
cooked them covered on low for roughly 2 hours.
By that time the beans were tender & cooked, but there was at least an inch of liquid
i removed the cover & simmered for an hour or more to reduce the liquid

the texture was fine but they had a strong metallic taste.
maybe i reduced for too long?
avoid instant pot quicksoak?
or do the whole thing in instsnt pot?
avoid soaking & do them entirely on the stove?

help me obiwan ilx, youre my only hope…

If the beans have a metallic taste, that is probably a problem with the bean and not with the preparation.

First recommendation: use the nice, fresh dried heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo (https://www.ranchogordo.com/). They make a huge difference.

I don't use any instant pot or quick cooking methods - strictly OG. Use a dutch oven if you have one. If not, use any big heavy pot.

If you use Rancho Gordo beans, you can soak them for 1-4 hours in the morning and then cook them in the afternoon (no thinking ahead). You can also dispense with soaking them all together, they will just take longer to cook.

DO NOT THROW OUT THE SOAKING WATER!!!

After the soak, include the beans and the soaking liquid in your pot and top off with any additional water to cover by two inches.

Cover the pot and put it on high with one clove of garlic, couple of bay leaves, and a few grinds of pepper, and some olive oil. Herbs are also nice depending on what you are using the beans for. Add other aromatics depending on the application. Bring to a heavy boil and remove the lid. Cook uncovered on a full boil for 10 minutes.

Immediately reduce the heat to as low as you can get it - an occasional perk/ripple is ideal. Use the lid to adjust the heat and amount of evaporation (lid on if your liquid is evaporating too fast, lid off if you need more reduction).

If your cooking liquid gets too low before the beans are done, do not add room temp water to the cooking beans - add hot water from a kettle.

DO NOT SALT BEANS (OR ADD ACID) UNTIL THEY ARE PRETTY MUCH DONE COOKING.

When they are done cooking (tender, but not falling apart for salads and some soups, falling apart for spreads, refried beans, etc.), remove from heat, add salt, and cover and let sit for a half hour so they can absorb the salt.

If you are using beans for a salad or other application where you are not serving them in the liquid, do not keep reducing the liquid. Just use a strainer to separate the beans from the liquid.

IF YOU ARE USING NICE BEANS, BUT DON"T NEED THE LIQUID FOR THE RECIPE, DO NOT THROW OUT THE COOKING LIQUID - FREEZE IT AND USE IT IN REPLACE OF CHICKEN OR BEEF STOCK.

I just made a beet risotto and used left over bean broth instead of store bought chicken stock and it ruled.

Beans are awesome.

i think that's a really good guide. my stovetop does not do gentle simmering so i prefer pressure cooking for beans at this point. with that method i do like to soak and i do salt earlier in the process. but overnight soak + 3:1 liquid:beans in instant pot with a couple bay leaves and a couple smashed garlic cloves has been working well for me.

thanks folks! very helpful :)

Nancy Silverton's methods yield very tasty beans ime: https://www.chiceats.com/recipe/vegan-vegetarian-beans/ceci-cooked-chickpeas

that web recipe says "flake salt" but the book simply says kosher salt. I usually use the broth to make a bean-and-greens soup later. She maybe uses a lower ratio of water to beans. She suggests a 1-4 hour soak for white beans, so that can change depending on the bean. She also does 2 carrots, 2 celery ribs, and 2 chile de arbol. The evoo is also a bit odd for a non pressure cooker recipe. It is all delicious, though!

also adds the salt right away

The nice thing about beans is once you get the hang of it, they are pretty forgiving and a fun canvas on which to experiment/clean out the refrigerator.

Curious about the motivations for going with dry beans. Are you using them to save on a bit of money?

nothing like that really. a friend made scratch beans at a cookout recently & they were so good & the recipe sounded so simple that i decided to try my hand

i also just remembered theres a stand at my farmers market that sells dried beans, i might hit them up

Beans cooked from dry taste much better than canned.

Some bean revelations:

I made real baked beans this winter using Yellow Eye beans. The recipe is dead simple - they cook for like 5 hours. I'm not a big baked bean person, but these were so good. Smoky, sweet, rich, savory. Perfect with meatloaf and other childhood nostalgia meals.

The Royal Corona beans on RG are unusually giant white beans. Rich, creamy insides with pretty thick skins and a distinctive taste and aroma. Cook them, drain them, and make a room temp salad with chopped celery, parsley, red onion, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and good quality tuna packed in oil (drained first). I made this for lunch a couple times this year. Absolutely everything I want in a meal and very healthy.

huge fan of dried beans here, that is all

canned beans are shit compared to dry

although both destroy my insides and so i rarely touch them nowadays :'(

I'm convinced and just ordered the Royal Corona beans! Along with 3 others. Your recipe with the parsley and tuna won me over.

that sounds so good.

OK I've tried dried beans a few times -- black beans were pretty much fine but the chickpeas had a brittle texture I didn't like -- but yall are making me rethink my assumptions!

Brittle beans sound undercooked. Need low and slow until fully done, and then they are great

I'm convinced and just ordered the Royal Corona beans! Along with 3 others. Your recipe with the parsley and tuna won me over.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, August 19, 2021 4:15 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yah! Hope you enjoy them!

OK I've tried dried beans a few times -- black beans were pretty much fine but the chickpeas had a brittle texture I didn't like -- but yall are making me rethink my assumptions!

Chickpeas are the one bean that you absolutely have to soak overnight. Even so they can take longer to cook than other beans. The nice thing is if you are using them for a spread where keeping them whole doesn't matter, you cannot over cook them (in fact it's better).

i got a bag of the royal coronas last time i was in a store that sells RG stuff! maybe i'll make them next week. many years ago i went to a long-gone restaurant that served pork ribs with a giant corona bean salad and i really loved that dish.

OK I've tried dried beans a few times -- black beans were pretty much fine but the chickpeas had a brittle texture I didn't like -- but yall are making me rethink my assumptions!

You pretty much gotta pressure cook chickpeas. Otherwise, it takes forever to get them tender.

not true. I made Ottolenghi's hummus recipe awhile back. Soaked chickpeas get cooked over medium heat with baking soda for a few minutes. added water and brought to a boil. they were super tender in 20 minutes or so

his other tricks in that recipe, which was by far the best hummus i've ever made, included a slightly higher ratio of tahini (which i sort of already always did), and throwing in some ice water while food processor was running.

The method in the Zahav cookbook uses ice water (a pretty good amount), except you whisk it into the tehina sauce with your lemon, garlic and seasonings, then season the chickpeas with the sauce.

i haven't seen that book but that sounds interesting (and couterintuitive)but i found that hummus recipe online somewhere last year, probably here: https://www.seriouseats.com/basic-hummus-from-jerusalem-ottolenghi

Even weirder is you don't have to peel the garlic because you blend it with lemon and salt and then strain it before adding the tahini.

forgot about that silliness. guess i'll try it that way next time, but i just peeled the **cking garlic last time

I support any recipe that circumvents peeling the garlic

YOU GUYS

i achieved very delicious beans!
thx to PKBR for the hand-holding instructions upthread. i followed them & magic did indeed happen!

though: while I did acquire rancho gordo beans & now know where i can buy them locally, i will be seeking out other local options vis farmers market etc because $6 for a pound of dried beans is um…crazy?

I just made a batch of baked beans for Labor Day supper using fairly ordinary small white beans, but of course baking them with onion, tomato & molasses means that the underlying taste of the beans is a negligible factor in the resulting deliciousness. Their 'tooth' is the more important factor. Should be slightly firm but very yielding. The canned stuff is just awful.

Lol dried beans at my farmers market are $10 a pound! So I get Rancho Gordo and congratulate myself on my thriftiness!

yeah even though i can afford it that's kind of the reason i have never bought them. i know they are great but idk. even organic beans from the bulk section of the store near me are like $3 at most. i usually get them from the indian or mexican store and they come out fine. someday i will get some and compare.

congrats on your beans vg! that's how i felt when i perfected my black beans. they are exactly as i like them!

re shopping: i go a store that sells a high volume of beans and buy the non-Goya brand, usually $1.19/lb. people pay $10 per pound of beans?!

I like the El Mexicano beans I get at the store. Rancho does have a few varieties that are harder to find though. I love their hominy, for example.

(Yes, I know hominy isn't beans)

Made the lentil recipe that someone linked here ages ago: https://www.daringgourmet.com/misir-wat-ethiopian-spiced-red-lentils/

Don’t know why I don’t make it more often, I added carrots and diced yam with the garlic/tomato/berbere, and left out the additional salt, and it turned out great.

VG, congrats on the delicious beans! Sorry about the Rancho Gordo stan-ing. Their main benefits are probably freshness and variety, but I'm sure the same can be achieved from other sources as well.

I am making baked beans today with yellow-eye beans I simmered yesterday. They cook for 5 more hours in the oven at 250 degrees!

Haha! It takes a special kind of bean stan to appreciate something that has to cook for 7 hours and at the end it's still a bean. I appreciate that. I made chili with some of my RG yellow beans last week and it was good chili but didn't really showcase the beans. I'll have to go and think about what I've done and mend my ways for the next recipe.

Certainly the more non-bean stuff that's in a bean recipe, the harder it will be to appreciate any subtle bean differences and the harder it is to justify paying a higher price.

roll that beautiful bean footage!

I am excited about the following dried varieties in our pantry:

Peruvian yellow beans
red Salvadoran beans
Whipple beans, a rare heirloom

Made the lentil recipe that someone linked here ages ago: https://www.daringgourmet.com/misir-wat-ethiopian-spiced-red-lentils/

Don’t know why I don’t make it more often, I added carrots and diced yam with the garlic/tomato/berbere, and left out the additional salt, and it turned out great.

― JoeStork, Tuesday, September 7, 2021 10:31 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this may have been me, i have made this a bunch of times and love it. i think i will make it tonight, in fact. i also put sweet potatoes in it if i have them. i have an actual mesir wat recipe but this is easier.

actually making it now, i made some chicken stock today (no celery or carrots because i don't like how it makes it taste too vegetable-y when making things like this). i need to get more berbere and store it better. gets kind of oxidized and loses the nice berbere smell.

made the mozza at home lasagna, complete with bechamel, and enjoyed it. nancy has a dried arbol chile, bay leaves, and half of an onion in the butter/flour/milk while you make it. you take that stuff out later, but I think it results in an excellent flavor. wonder if it could win some anti-bechamels over. probably not.

i made mapo tofu last night, w/impossible beef

good stuff

yeah have made it successfully with beanfeast before, so a decent meat substitute would be perfect

Idk if I’m just late to the party or if this is a well kept secret but: placing a lil dish of water on the cutting board while you chop an onion prevents it from making your eyes water.

o really? i had to slice 6 onions the other day and used my child's swimming goggles as my eyes have been extra sensitive recently! not exactly comfortable but did the trick!