Pulses and hard water

[Allana]

Hello E-gulleteers!!

I have been lurking for quite a while and decided it was about time I joined in

I have a somewhat irritating problem with pulses. I am completely unable to persuade kidney beans, butter beans, haricot beans etc etc to become tender all the way through - there always seems to be a chalky bit in the centre. I've tried soaking overnight, soaking for 24 hours, soaking with a bicarbonate of soda/flour mix in the water, the quick soak method and so on - I never salt the water either. I am now wondering if my tap water is to blame as I live in an area with very hard water.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? My next step was going to be trying to cook the pulses in some scottish mineral water, which seems a little desperate to me!!

Cheers,

Allana

[BettyK]

Hi Allana,

Welcome! I'm new here too

I think you have the answer...if nothing works, try mineral water.

Have you tried the pressure cooker? I use mine all the time. :

[mixmaster b]

I have heard that this can happen when the beans are too old...though it sounds like your results are very consistent, which might point to a different problem(???)

I always thought a dried bean was a dried bean, but I splurged on a fancy bag of French flageolets recently (I couldn't resist the pretty pale green color) and I was impressed with the difference--might be worth a try?

Best of luck!

[Big Man]

Because misery loves company, I'll let you know that I have the same problem. They're always mealy/chalky or mushy/overdone.

[Suvir Saran]

Hi Allana,

Welcome!  I'm new here too  

I think you have the answer...if nothing works, try mineral water.

Have you tried the pressure cooker? I use mine all the time. :

I use a pressure cooker and often, with old beans or pulses, a little bakins soda is necessary.

When we were in the hills in India and had hard water, Panditji or Baba or mom would soak the lentils overnight, and then cook in the pressure cooker. I know they added asafetida and salt and some turmeric as also a little baking soda. It seemed to always work.

Will call her later tonight and ask for pointers, for this was a big part of our life. We spent close to a month or two in the Himalayan foothills each year. And hard water was what we had to cook with.

Welcome to eGullet!

[g.johnson]

If the problem is due to hard water, I’m not sure that using spring water is the answer since that too will contain minerals. Distilled or de-ionized water would be better and cheaper.