Cooking beans...

[mcgeiger]

Nothing seems to agree, one cookbook says NEVER soak beans, because you lose flavor, and another says quick soaks change texture, and yet another says all beans (including lentils) must be soaked overnight. I have tried all of these methods, but never with the same type of bean, so it is hard to compare. Based on your experience--
Do I soak beans or not?
If I soak beans, how long (since O/N is usually 16+hours, isn't this too long?)?
If I use a pressure cooker, do I soak beans?
Is there a ratio of time in a pressure cooker to normal cooking times?

[hippie-chick]

I dont know about the pressure cooker questions, but as for soaking, the only time I do it is if I wont be home for very long to cook them...example, if you you soak black beans overnight, they can cook within 45 min, where they may need 2 hours to cook wo the soak. I prefer the taste of non-soaked (esp with bl beans)

[Terri_A]

I love black beans when I eat them in restaurants, but I have never made them at home....does anyone have any recipes with black beans to share??? Perhaps refried black beans that aren't laden with lard!!!

[tovie]

I suppose it might come down to your personal preference and/or which way is the easiest/most convenient for you. Interestingly, I've never heard the "don't soak" theory. I always figured the different ways were related to how much time you have to mess around with them (or, in my case, inability to plan ahead and remember to do things like soak beans overnight or take butter out of the fridge ahead of time to soften or...

Personally I've never noticed a difference but I'd probably have to have them side by side to tell, and it also might depend on what you're doing with them. I've used black beans canned, dried with quick soak and soaked overnight and not noticed a difference. The same for great northern and pinto. Actually, the only time I've been unhappy is with recipes that call for straight cooking from the dried state (no soaking or quick soak). For some reason I'm never pleased with the results no matter how long I cook or what I attempt (and I've seen all the "don't add salt" "don't add tomato" "don't add this and that" warnings too).

I don't know if 16 hours is too long or not. Good question. I don't think I'd soak them that long, though. I usually only do the soak overnight on the weekend when I'm getting up the next morning and cooking the beans. If I absolutely have to do it during the week, then I put them to soak before I go to work in the morning (so I get the "8 hours" that way and not 16 or longer). I do the same thing with marinating meat and anything else that says "overnight" or 8 hours. I have everything all ready to go the night before so that in the morning I can just pour water over them real quick and run out the door.

As far as lentils, no, they don't need to be soaked overnight. Or, well, I'm not familiar with all types but not all of them need to be soaked overnight. The ones I buy at the grocery store (what do they call these, brown, green? mine just say "lentils" on them) cook up in like 20 minutes, so they sure don't need to be soaked overnight. And I know red lentils cook up in a really short time too. Hmm, I'm wondering if soaking is one of the supposed ways to lessen/prevent gas, but overnight? For something that cooks up in 20 minutes? That I don't get.

You don't soak for pressure cooking. The whole idea there is much shortened time. I'm on an Indian cooking list and they'll talk about pressure cookers and how convenient they are for very quick cooking of dhals (beans, lentils). Not that I would know, since I don't have one (g) I've not seen a chart for pressure cooker vs regular cooking times but that would sure be nice. Somewhere around here I have some Indian recipes I wanted to try but I never have since I couldn't figure out the regular, no pressure cooker time for them (probably when I figure that out, I won't be able to find the recipes anymore I imagine a pressure cooker cookbook would give the times and maybe even have some sort of chart but I don't have one so I can't check. So maybe someone else will comment here.

Tovie

[agoodcook]

CL has several black bean recipes that are very good. These recipes are very yummy and use both canned and fresh black beans:

Black-Bean Quesadillas with Goat Cheese

2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (19-ounce) can black beans, undrained
1/3 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 (4-ounce) package goat cheese, crumbled
8 (8-inch) flour tortillas
1/2 cup fat-free sour cream
1/2 cup salsa

Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, and saute for 3 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup salsa, cumin, and beans, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes or until thick. Mash the bean mixture slightly with a potato masher. Remove from heat; stir in the cilantro and goat cheese.

Spread the bean mixture evenly over 4 tortillas; top each with 1 tortilla, pressing gently.

Heat 1/4 teaspoon olive oil in pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 quesadilla, and cook for 2 minutes on each side. Repeat the procedure with the remaining olive oil and quesadillas. Cut each quesadilla into 6 wedges. Serve with fat-free sour cream and 1/2 cup salsa.

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: 3 quesadilla wedges, 1 tablespoon sour cream, and 1 tablespoon salsa)

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 279(24% from fat); FAT 7.3g (sat 2.8g,mono 2.6g,poly 1.4g); PROTEIN 12.8g; CHOLESTEROL 13mg; CALCIUM 152mg; SODIUM 662mg; FIBER 5g; IRON 3.2mg; CARBOHYDRATE 41.3g

Cooking Light, JUNE 2001

AND:

Chipotle-Black Bean Soup

Soup:
1 cup dried black beans (about 6 ounces)
1/2 cup boiling water
1 dried chipotle chile
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups water
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (16-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes and green chiles, undrained

Toppings:
2 (6-inch) corn tortillas, cut into 1/4-inch strips
Cooking spray
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1/4 cup (1 ounce) finely shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese

To prepare soup, sort and wash beans; place in a large Dutch oven. Cover with water to 2 inches above beans; bring to a boil, and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 1 hour. Drain.
Combine boiling water and chipotle chile in a bowl; let stand 15 minutes or until soft. Drain, seed, and chop.

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; saut� 2 minutes or until tender. Add garlic; saut� 1 minute. Add beans, chipotle chile, 2 cups water, oregano, cumin, and broth; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 3 hours or until beans are soft. Place 1 cup of soup in a blender; process until smooth. Return to pan. Stir in pepper and tomatoes; cook until thoroughly heated.

Preheat oven to 350�.

To prepare toppings, place tortilla strips in a single layer on a baking sheet. Lightly coat tortilla strips with cooking spray. Bake at 350� for 12 minutes or until toasted.

Ladle soup into each of 4 bowls; top with tortilla strips, yogurt, and cheese.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 1/4 cups soup, 2 tablespoons yogurt, 1 tablespoon cheese, and 1/4 cup tortilla strips)

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 276(12% from fat); FAT 3.7g (sat 1.2g,mono 1.4g,poly 0.7g); PROTEIN 15.8g; CHOLESTEROL 5mg; CALCIUM 222mg; SODIUM 769mg; FIBER 7.9g; IRON 3.4mg; CARBOHYDRATE 42.7g

Cooking Light, JUNE 2000

[sneezles]

According to Lorna Sass (I have 3 of her pressure cooker books):

You can pressure cook beans in about a quarter of the time it takes using the standard cooking techniques. For example, pre-soaked pinto beans become tender in about 6 minutes and chickpeas in about 16...

When practical, I call for unsoaked beans, but experience has revealed that presoaked beans cook more evenly and are usually easier on the digestive system.

Her method for speed-soaking:

the pressure cooker offers the option of speed-soaking, a thecnique that takes about 20 minutes and is roughly equivalent to soaking overnight. This method is not completely reliable: If the beans are very fresh, they sometimes begin to cook (this is morea consideration with small beans than with large ones). However, the method is handy for a last-minute presoak:

�Place the water and beans in the cooker, in a ratio of 3 parts water to 1 part beans. (If using an old-fashioned jiggle-top cooker and preparing large quantity of beans, add 2 tsp of oil per cup of dired beans to control the foam that devbelops during speed soaking).

�Lock the lid in place. Over high heat, bring to high pressure.

� For small beans, such as navies: As soon as high pressure is reached, turn off heat.

� For medium beans, such as Great Northerns: Cook for 1 minute under high pressure.

� For large beans, such as chickpeas: Cook for 3 minutes under high pressure.

� Turn off the heat and allow the pressure to come down naturally. Remove the lid, tilting it away from you to allow excess steam to escape.

� Drain and rinse beans and proceed as directed in the recipe.

Pressure cook beans until they are just short of done and allow the pressure to come down naturally (the quick release creates quite a bit of turbulence inside the cooker and it likely to burst the beans' skins). When timing beans, keep in mind that a 10-minute natural pressure release is equivalent to 4 minutes of cooking under pressure. If more cooking time is required, simmer the beans in the standard way with the lid ajar, until tender.

For soaked beans:

Large beans (chickpeas, black soy beans, and favas): cook for 10 minutes under high pressure

For medium beans (black beans, cannellinis, Great Northern, and red kidneys): cook for 3 minutes under pressure.

For small beans (navies, adzukis, baby lima and pintos): cook for 2 minutes under pressure.

Allow pressure to come down naturally.

HTH!

[merley]

Tovie,
I'm interested in the Indian cooking list that you mentioned. I am trying to create Indian dishes at home, but could use some more info and help. Could you share this info ?
Thanks

[NewMrsG]

I'm certainly not an expert on beans, and use canned much more often than dried, but will say that I tend to like the dried a bit better - they're not as soft as canned (although, just to clarify, I don't mind soft beans) and somehow just have a bit of a different texture to them. I always use dried when making my black bean chili.

I was going to add, too, that I've read that one reason for soaking beans is that the beans are supposed to make it much less likely that you'll need to be sleeping alone that evening, if you know what I mean. So if I'm using dried, I soak 'em!

Oh - and when I soak beans, I tend to soak them overnight before using them the next morning.

And I've NEVER heard of soaking lentils before. Seems to me they'd be mush!

[Ohioan]

I agree about the lentils: There's no need to soak them. Most lentils will cook up fine in a half hour, or, if they're really old, in 45 minutes. Soaking them is a waste of time and may very well produce mush.

There's definitely a texture difference between canned beans and cooked dried beans, but I find it's most noticeable in pintos and various white beans. And a lot depends on the brands. I have to admit that I, the Bean Queen, occasionally use canned beans, especially chickpeas. My brand of choice is Eden, because they don't have any added salt.

As for soaking, I've never done it, mostly because I'm mentally lazy, i.e., don't plan that far ahead. I start my beans cooking with boiling water (which I've set to boiling in a kettle while I pick over and rinse the beans), let them cook for an hour, and then start stirring them every 15 minutes or so until they're done. Most beans take about 1.5 to 2 hours this way -- except lima beans, which take up to 3 hours, and chickpeas, which take forever -- and the first hour is no-supervision time when I do other things.

I know some people do the soaking bit partly to get rid of the sugars that cause, er, problems in the nether anatomical regions , but the trouble is that when you discard the soaking water, you discard a lot of the water-soluble nutrients such as B vitamins. I don't even rinse canned beans for that reason -- and that's another reason why I like the Eden no-salt-added beans. Besides, bean broth is yummy.

Cheers,
Phoebe

[hippie-chick]

I make fake refried beans....After I cook the beans, I drain them and keep the liquid. I season the beans, then put most of them in the food processor. I add tiny amounts of liquid and pluse until they are the consistency I like. (you can also add a touch of olive oil if you want a bit of fat) Taste and season again. Volia, refried beans.

Note: I keep the liquid for the duration of the beans, because they tend to soak up liquid during the week....

[kjh01]

I soak lentils, but only for about 15 minutes. I pour boiling water over them and let them sit, then drain before using. I have found this makes them more tender.

As for beans, I usually use canned so I can't help you there

[tovie]

Tovie,
I'm interested in the Indian cooking list that you mentioned. I am trying to create Indian dishes at home, but could use some more info and help. Could you share this info ?
Thanks

Over at yahoo groups, I mostly lurk but they're a very nice bunch of people. The archives go back to like 2000 at least, lots and lots of recipes (bg) They're pretty good about explaining things, ingredients, cooking terms, stuff like that.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiancooking/

[emptyspool]

Hippie-Chick you are brilliant! Incredible trick with your fake refried beans. I have cooked hundreds of pounds of pintos I do believe and will give this a try!

FWIW I only soak white beans and garbanzos. I cook pintos and red beans either in a crock pot or on stove for 2 1/2 hrs without soaking. Haven't tried black beans in the crock yet. I prefer frozen black eyed peas to dried ones.

Also I never had much success with chickpeas, they seem to stay hard as a rock. I asked a middle eastern restaurant owner what the secret was and he said they add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda while cooking. Haven't tried it yet but just in case anyone else wants to......

[masala gal]

From the transcript of Alton Brown's Good Eats show about beans:

The occasional rock, stick or dirt clod will slip past the sorting technology at the plant, so it's a good idea to give your little ones the once over. Now while you're at it, keep an eye out for any discolored, cracked, shriveled or otherwise lacking legumes. Cooking will not improve a bad bean.

Having wisely stopped off at the sorting step, we may now hop happily over the bean pit of despair to step two: washing.

Most processors don't wash their beans after drying because, of course, that would re-hydrate them which would kind of destroy the reason for being dry in the first place. So, a quick spray will knock off the dust.

Having wisely washed, we can now leap over the filthy beans and go directly to the next step: soaking.

Typically, dried beans don't have to soak before they're cooked. But if the don't, they'll take twice as long to cook as soaked beans will. And if they're old beans it will take, like, three times longer. They only exception, really, are lentils and split peas which are small and fast cooing anyway. And of course, black beans can get by with a 3 to 4 hour soak, but everything else gets the long soak.

Dried beans, in this case a pound of Great Northerns, will double in volume during soaking. So, start with enough liquid to cover by a couple of inches. The actual amount of liquid does not matter as long as the beans stay submerged. If they swell up above the water line, they will explode. [pause] Okay, they won't explode. But it will be impossible to cook every bean in the batch evenly because the beans on the bottom will be more hydrated than the beans on the top.

Now, I leave these covered and counter-ed over night. But the fridge is okay, too, if not a little slower. You'll know they're ready when a bean splits easily been your fingers and is just translucent on the inside.

Soaking for over 12 hours will result in mushy, flavorless beans.

Regarding draining after soaking:

MFC: You must throw away the soaking water. This is the only way to prevent the
tummy music.
AB: Tummy music? What the heck is tummy mu ... oh.

Oh sure, blame those poor defenseless little beans for your emission control problems. Well, whether you like it or not, the true enemy lies within.

[voice over] Over the lips, past the gums, look out stomach here it comes. Now, once your latest nosh is mashed to mush in the stomach and moves off to that molecular chop-shop the small intestine. There, chemical sledge hammers called enzymes further dismantle your meal. It is then absorbed by the intestinal wall and becomes body fuel.

Now unfortunately, beans contain large numbers of humungous sugars called oligosaccharide. Alas, the human tool kit lacks an enzyme capable of cracking such a colossus. So, they skip the absorption step and move off to the large intestines intact.

There, a host of voracious bacteria lay in wait for a passing meal. None of this would be particularly compelling but for one fact. You see, when they eat these bacteria get really bad ...

... gas. But there are solutions. For one thing, chew thoroughly. I mean, the more the beans are broken down, the better. Now, there are cooks out there that claim the Mexican herb, epazote, preserves gas, but science has yet to bear that one out.

What we do know for sure is that certain kinds of mold produce an enzyme called, alphagalactosidase, which can digest oligosaccharides. So, you can either eat this [piece of moldy bread] with your beans, or you can sprinkle on a few drops of one the commercial applications containing the same enzyme. Either way, you'll be able to digest the whole thing. Temporarily.

So as for the soaking liquid, sure a few of the oligosaccharides have leached out into it. But you know what? So have a few vitamins and a good bit of flavor. So, regardless of what he says, I say don't throw the baby out with the bath water.