beans!

[sage]

Dear cooks who know more than me,

I've been cooking with dry beans for the last some-odd months to save money and reduce exposure to harmful toxins and such. The cookbooks say:

1. soak beans 8 hrs or overnight.
2. parboil soaked (rinsed, drained) beans at a rolling boil for 10-12 minutes.
3. rinse and cover with fresh water and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour or more, depending on the kind of bean.

Got it. The thing is, after I parboil? I simmer for 25 minutes and the beans are done!

I'm generally cooking one cup of any of these varieties: black, pinto, lima, rattlesnake, kidney, or small red. Chickpeas and chana dal take longer -- much closer to what directions indicate.

Why are my beans done so fast? If I look away for like, a minute, they get mushy and/or burn to the bottom of the pot.

Also, I'm at practically sea level, whatever San Antonio is at, if that matters.

I am so confused. I mean, they taste okay, but I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong! Help?

Thank you!

Comments

[gchick]

So, first, I learned the soak and parboil as an either/or thing -- either you soak 'em overnight, or if you don't have time to do that, you can do the boil thing instead.

And second, I never bother to do either step. I just start with clean picked-over beans and cook them until the taste and texture is what I want. Just use the cooking time in your step 3 as a guideline, and then taste them. Bigger beans take longer than smaller ones, but there's absolutely nothing you can do wrong by changing the time (although if you're burning them, use way more water than you are now) -- if they taste okay, they're done.

I suspect that all those old rules came from that era in American cooking when beans were feared because being in the same room with one might have once made someone fart, and when all vegetable matter was to be boiled into mush and submission.

[sage]

Huh. I learned it as an AND because of digestive issues. Whenever I have done the quicksoak way, the gas afterwards was epic by comparison -- and I cook beans nearly daily, so it wasn't a matter of not being used to them. But yes, I think the answer lies in changing the time and figuring out what effects different kinds of cooking broth/water/etc. have.

Thanks!