Cooking Dried Beans

[SLB]

Thanks, y'all.  

 

Beebs, I do my baked beans in the oven all night at 180 degreesF.  Your seasoning mixture sounds wonderful;  that said, in my home there will always be a fattyporky service meat involved.  

 

There is a Jamaican style recipe from Craig Claiborne years back that involves adding rum along with brown sugar for the sweetness component.  I recommend it.  

Edited November 11, 2015 by SLB (log)

[kayb]

I love beans. I keep several different varieties on hand, but I always tend to find myself going back to my standards of red beans, navy beans, Great Northern beans, black beans and chickpeas. I use a fair amount of lentils, as well. 

 

My favorite baked beans recipe starts with soaked navy beans, in a sauce of ketchup, mustard, sorghum molasses, assorted spices, and worcestershire sauce. With, of course, salt pork, or, in a pinch, cut up very fatty bacon. I make a very non-regulation red beans and rice with a tomato base, andouille sausage, chicken and ham. Black beans get cooked with garlic, pepper and bay leaves. Chickpeas fan out in a variety of seasonings and sauces. I do a lentil soup with Spanish chorizo that's pretty marvelous. And it's really difficult to beat a good ol' bowl of white or pinto beans with hamhock and fresh, hot, buttered cornbread.

 

I bought some mung beans on a whim, and am trying to figure out how to use them.

[patrickamory]

I've mentioned it here more than once, but this recipe from janeer on her blog makes the best baked beans I've ever had in my life, bar none:

 

http://littlecomptonmornings.blogspot.com/2008/03/butterscotch-beans-saturday-night.html

[patrickamory]

Btw that's a two day prep... and make your own salt pork - it's key. This dry method works really well:

 

http://www.aliyaleekong.com/blog/salt-pork

 

So add another week to your prep if you don't have any.

[SLB]

Oh, man, does that look good.

[Beebs]

Not exactly a bean, but after making hummus from dried chickpeas, I am never (except in a pinch!) using canned chickpeas again. What a difference!

[scubadoo97]

Not exactly a bean, but after making hummus from dried chickpeas, I am never (except in a pinch!) using canned chickpeas again. What a difference!

agreed. Canned in a pinch but dried is much better

[SLB]

I usually use dried, but I had never had the RG garbanzos before; it's possible I'd never had recently-picked garbanzos before too, I guess.  They really did have more taste.  I have not experienced this with every single RG bean that has a commercially-grown counterpart, but the garbanzos were stunners.  

[blue_dolphin]

I've mentioned it here more than once, but this recipe from janeer on her blog makes the best baked beans I've ever had in my life, bar none:

 

http://littlecomptonmornings.blogspot.com/2008/03/butterscotch-beans-saturday-night.html

 

That sounds really good.  I placed an order for RG beans yesterday and included a lb of Yellow Eyes to try this out.  I'm a little skeered about the idea of making my own salt pork (recovering vegetarian who has no idea where to even buy a pork belly  ) but I'll give that part some thought as well.  Thanks for the link there, too.

[scubadoo97]

Last I used RG yellow eyes I used them in a beef stew dish for a super bowl meal. They were the winners

[TdeV]

I realize this is an old thread, but I'm curious about dried beans and the Instant Pot (of which I'm a new owner). I'm now a member of @rancho_gordo's Bean Club and have quite a few to choose from.

 

Many world-wide recipes have directions suggesting that what makes a bean dish evocative is the long slow cooking time of the beans in the sauce.

 

Can the beans be pressure cooked a day or two before? Do they get any seasoning when they are cooked?

 

Does the sauce get cooked on the day of the feast or earlier?

 

How much time and at what temperature should the beans and (finished?) sauce be "cooked" together?

[Shelby]

25 minutes ago, TdeV said:

I realize this is an old thread, but I'm curious about dried beans and the Instant Pot (of which I'm a new owner). I'm now a member of @rancho_gordo's Bean Club and have quite a few to choose from.

 

Many world-wide recipes have directions suggesting that what makes a bean dish evocative is the long slow cooking time of the beans in the sauce.

 

Can the beans be pressure cooked a day or two before? Do they get any seasoning when they are cooked?

 

Does the sauce get cooked on the day of the feast or earlier?

 

How much time and at what temperature should the beans and (finished?) sauce be "cooked" together?

I LOVE the bean club!  There is a thread around here somewhere where we used to discuss each shipment, but it kind of died out.  I need to be better about posting on it.

 

When you say sauce, you're talking broth etc. right?  I do a lot of what I call "Mexican Beans"---usually a black bean or a pinto type bean in some broth--whatever I have on hand, chicken or beef.  If I don't have any broth I throw in a couple bullion cubes.  Spices are garlic, a bay leaf or two, cumin, salt and pepper.  If I've planned ahead, I soak the beans, but more often than not, I haven't planned ahead.  If the beans are a bigger type bean, they take longer (for me anyway).  On average I start with an hour in the IP and do natural release.  If they still aren't done to my liking, usually about 30 more minutes does it.  For sure the seasoning soaks in to the beans.  I see no reason why one couldn't make the beans a day or two before.  

[TdeV]

Thanks for replying @Shelby. So far I've made a few bean soups and am trying to find recipes with less liquid.

 

Yesterday I received an invitation to cook Christmas dinner. 🤣 I'm defrosting 72 hour sous vide beef shank (4.5 lbs originally). On hand are RG Yellow Indian Woman or Cranberry beans which I could pressure cook today, in case I have trouble figuring out how much to cook them. The sauce (thick) I was figuring to make tomorrow. Maybe wine, maybe tomatoes, maybe something else . . .

 

I'm trying to understand how much cooking the beans in the sauce contributes to the dish. Before IP, my goto method for beans was to rapidly bring to boil, then 2 minutes boil, then put on a saucepan lid and leave the beans alone for 1 hour. Some beans would be almost done in that time, but I recall tomato chile taking much longer. I guess I do understand that for people who use canned beans, those beans have been cooked before any spice has been added.

 

Do you continue to cook the bean mixture after the pressure has been released from the IP? What setting and temp?

 

[lemniscate]

I am just now trying my first go at beans in the IP.  I've got 1 lb of dried Great Northern and ham broth and pork broth going.   I put some bay, fennel seeds, smoked paprika, and a touch of other spices, onions and garlic added.  Fingers crossed.

[kayb]

I typically pressure cook my dry beans, if not presoaked, for an hour with sauteed onion, garlic and a bay leaf. I don't salt until after that. If I'm going to do a tomato-ey sauce, I do that after the beans are cooked; I can then either transfer them to a baking dish or leave them in the pot and switch over to slow cook.

[TdeV]

Thanks, @kayb, slow cook low or high?

[robirdstx]

I recently used this recipe, Instant Pot Red Beans and Rice and was very happy with the way the beans turned out.

 

 

[Shelby]

4 hours ago, TdeV said:

Thanks for replying @Shelby. So far I've made a few bean soups and am trying to find recipes with less liquid.

 

Yesterday I received an invitation to cook Christmas dinner. 🤣 I'm defrosting 72 hour sous vide beef shank (4.5 lbs originally). On hand are RG Yellow Indian Woman or Cranberry beans which I could pressure cook today, in case I have trouble figuring out how much to cook them. The sauce (thick) I was figuring to make tomorrow. Maybe wine, maybe tomatoes, maybe something else . . .

 

I'm trying to understand how much cooking the beans in the sauce contributes to the dish. Before IP, my goto method for beans was to rapidly bring to boil, then 2 minutes boil, then put on a saucepan lid and leave the beans alone for 1 hour. Some beans would be almost done in that time, but I recall tomato chile taking much longer. I guess I do understand that for people who use canned beans, those beans have been cooked before any spice has been added.

 

Do you continue to cook the bean mixture after the pressure has been released from the IP? What setting and temp?

 

Oh you brave person!  That's not much notice for Christmas dinner 😳.

 

I usually keep it on the warm setting.  

 

I'm not @kayb but my IP's run hot.  I definitely do any slow cooking on the low setting and make sure to check it.

[lindag]

10 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Oh you brave person!  That's not much notice for Christmas dinner 😳.

 

I usually keep it on the warm setting.  

 

I'm not @kayb but my IP's run hot.  I definitely do any slow cooking on the low setting and make sure to check it.

Contrarily, my iPod (6 qt. model) is cooler than my other slow cookers, I use high setting.

[kayb]

4 hours ago, TdeV said:

Thanks, @kayb, slow cook low or high?

I use low.

[weinoo]

I've found that some of the RG beans are so "fresh" that they're pretty much done in about 20 minutes in the IP.

 

Couple of other things I've sorta learned.

 

Pre-soaking just gives a better end product, in my opinion. Soaked in brine, a la an old CI method. Beans cook more evenly, and of course, faster than beans which haven't been soaked.. And if I haven't started soaking the night before, I'll just use the hottest tap water and give the beans an hour or two before cooking.

 

Now, and I know this is heresy...I find the finished product to be so much better when cooked on the stovetop, with onion, carrot, celery, garlic, bouquet garni, s & p. So if there's no rush to get the beans done (and here there usually isn't), that's how I do them.

 

This is all just personal preference.

 

Oh, and I cooked some of RG's Royal Corona beans this week.  They're huge.  And let's just say they, ummmmm, are interesting digestively.

[chromedome]

I've used my IP more for dry beans than anything else, I think. Is it as good as slow-cooking them for hours? My inclination is to say no, in situations (ie, classic baked beans) where the sauce reduces and thickens as the beans cook. I'm sure it's perfectly possible to make adjustments so the IP version comes out more or less the same, and I'm sure someone else has done the work to figure it out, but I don't care that much...if those are the beans and the result I'm looking for, I do it the old-fashioned way and slow-cook them.

To me the real value of the IP is just that I can decide I want beans at 4 or 5 PM, and have them table-ready for dinner. Sometimes I *do* think far enough ahead to pull some out and soak them, but usually not, so this is a Really Big Deal for me. I also have a big-ass bag of dry chickpeas in my cupboard, and thanks to the IP can turn them into hummus pretty quickly.

 

I also use it a lot for cooking pork. Pork shoulder often comes on sale for dirt cheap where I live, and I also can buy the pork breast bone pieces one of my local supermarkets trims from its racks of side ribs. The thing about this is that when the pork is done, there will be a varying quantity of intensely porky juices beneath. I'll add my dry beans to this, along with some aromatics and as much extra water as needed, and the end result is some really porky-tasting beans. Those are my current favorite, and I have a couple of containers of the finished beans in my freezer now at all times. They're great for refried, or for adding to a soup or a grain dish.

[dtremit]

On 12/25/2019 at 8:32 AM, chromedome said:

I also use it a lot for cooking pork. Pork shoulder often comes on sale for dirt cheap where I live, and I also can buy the pork breast bone pieces one of my local supermarkets trims from its racks of side ribs. The thing about this is that when the pork is done, there will be a varying quantity of intensely porky juices beneath. I'll add my dry beans to this, along with some aromatics and as much extra water as needed, and the end result is some really porky-tasting beans. Those are my current favorite, and I have a couple of containers of the finished beans in my freezer now at all times. They're great for refried, or for adding to a soup or a grain dish.

 

I think I've posted this elsewhere, but my standard procedure for pork shoulder in the IP is to cook a whole, untrimmed, bone-in shoulder for as long as it takes, with minimal seasoning. Remove and rest until it's cooled enough to handle, and then separate the good meat from the bones, skin, fat, and gristle.

 

Everything but the meat goes back in the IP with a bunch more water for another 90 minutes while we eat. The result gets chilled overnight.

 

You end up with a sizable cap of really clean pork fat, and two quarts or so of mild but gelatinous pork stock; the latter being really useful for beans, among other things. I often find myself spooning some of the de-fatted stock back into dishes I make with the shoulder meat, as it adds a nice gloss when reduced.

[heidih]

Since lots of folks are commenting elsewhere on eG about their dried bean supplies in troubled times I thought this lovely piece from Serious Eats might inspire   https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/01/ideas-for-cooking-dried-beans-best-heirloom-beans-rancho-gordo-alternatives.html