what's cooking? part 5: 2017-2027

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!

I can’t remember the science exactly but it’s something about the thing that causes the stinging is hydrophilic and your eyes are usually the closest source of water so if you place another water source closer to the onion, your eyes won’t be affected.

I tried it last night and not a single tear was shed!

hmm, might try that. yeah the source of the stinging is whatever substance in onions coming into contact with the water in your eyes and turning into acid

Are some people less disposed to onion tears? Cutting them rarely ever bothers me, and I don't do anything special. Maybe because I wear contact lenses?

yes, contact lenses help

I buy sweet onions (vidalia, peru, maui) over "storage" varieties pretty exclusively and never get the tears.

Contact lenses are absolutely protective. Whenever I cut onions in just glasses I am amazed at the difference.

Maybe this question is better on the Instant Pot thread, but apropos of the previous BEANS talk: if I have a full recipe for, say, chili but instead of canned, I use dried beans, would I just add all of the ingredients (veggies, other beans, etc.) and then set the pressure cooking to however long it'd take to cook the dried beans?

And as a followup, the beans I'd be cooking from dry in this recipe are supposed to disintegrate to thicken the chili, so I'd reckon that I'd need to add more pressure cooking time in addition to just cooking them?

Seems like that would result in overcooked veggies. I'd be inclined to cook the dry beans separately (maybe leaving them a bit al dente), then do the normal cooking with everything.

yeah i would absolutely cook them separately. the remaining ingredients are going to be mush if you pressure cook them for that long.

Got it, thanks!

yeah definitely cosigning the cook beans separately approach

Been cooking dried white beans with carrots, celery, onion, garlic, thyme, arbol, parm rind. Then take all but beans out. Add some cooked homemade italian sausage and kale. Good winter meal.

update: i am a bean cooking wizard since this thread set me straight

i have made at least three batches of EXCELLENT beans and found a local farm stand selling their dried beans for $2 a pound! 😃

whoa, that is not a lot of beans for beans

compared to fuckin $6 a pound for rumplstiltskin’s rancho gordo its a STEAL

update: i am a bean cooking wizard since this thread set me straight

i have made at least three batches of EXCELLENT beans and found a local farm stand selling their dried beans for $2 a pound! 😃

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, November 19, 2021 11:27 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hurray! Beans4life.

I made red beans and rice last week with a bone in ham shank that was very good.

i bought mr veg an air fryer for christmas after my brother in law was talking them up at thanksgiving

we need another gadget like a hole in the head but we also eat at home like 95% of the time so hey, why not give it a whirl

i can see it being useful in summer when we dont want to use oven/stove

i got one as a prize for doing a good job at work (there were like 10 choices and most of them sucked) and it's ok. i have a tiny kitchen though so most of the time i forget it's in the basement and i just roast things anyway. it's so big!