Bean question

[bloviatrix]

I've decided to make John Ash's Spicy Black Bean Chowder (From Earth to the Table, p.64 if you have the book).

The recipe calls for sauteeing the vegetables, and then adding the ham hocks (I'm using smoked turkey legs), beans, chicken stock, orange juice, and assorted herbs and spices. You bring it all to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.

But here's where I need help. Beans don't soften when in acidic liquid. They more soluble in alkaline conditions. This is why beans won't soften when in the presence of tomatoes. Therefore, will the beans soften if orange juice is part of the liquid? After all, it is acidic. Should I cook my beans first?

[jayt90]

I have heard ( and read) so many things that keep beans hard, when you want them soft! But nothing is as important as freshness. If your supply of beans was grown and harvested in 2004, then a little orange juice, or tomatoes, or salt, or oil in the pot won't keep them from cooking in a reasonable amount of time.

[russ parsons]

actually, if i recall correctly, acidic ingredients don't have much of an effect at all. alkaline ingredients really do (that's why you add molasses to boston baked beans after the beans have already softened).

[petite tête de chou]

Ive made a batch of dried white beans that I cooked in a light, lemony broth to which I later added chunks of cod and didnt have any problems with the beans softening after about (?) three hours. The beans were, indeed pretty darn fresh.

[andiesenji]

Acid does have an effect on dried beans, it actually stabilizes the protein in the bean which keeps them firm, just as a little vinegar in the water used for poaching eggs causes the protein in the egg white to firm up more rapidly.

Soak and cook the beans until they are just tender, then add them to the recipe.

Every recipe I have for Italian soups that involve cannelini and tomatoes, stresses that the beans must be cooked first then added to the broth then the tomatoes are added. I remember Maryann Esposito being quite emphatic about this when I used to watch Ciao Italia

By the way, I have made the Spicy Black Bean Chowder and it is awesome.

I always make my "real" black skillet cornbread to have with it.

Edited January 14, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[bloviatrix]

actually, if i recall correctly, acidic ingredients don't have much of an effect at all. alkaline ingredients really do (that's why you add molasses to boston baked beans after the beans have already softened).

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My copy of McGee has gone into hiding, but on the bean thread Fifi said (and quoted McGee:

Ah... The acid issue. You are right. I don't have many bean recipes that use tomato products but those that do get the tomato added at the end. Oddly enough, those who INSIST on putting beans in chili exploit this property whether they know it or not. More from McGee:

QUOTE 

Cell wall hemicelluloses are more soluble in alkaline conditions, and seeds, like stems and leaves, will soften more readily for this reason than they would in acidic water. Veteran chili makers have probably noticed this effect when they put partially cooked beans into chili sauce: the beans simply do not get any softer...

Now... if you are going to adulterate a perfectly good chili with beans , you really don't want them turning into mush. This is one place where a firm bean is called for. McGee also goes on to say that you can use this knowledge to keep beans at a particular texture when reheating or adding to another dish in a secondary cooking by making the new environment more acid.

Dried Bean thread

[fifi]

It is going to depend on how acid it gets. Too much will retard the softening of the beans, a little more will stop them in their tracks. We got down to "basic science" here. I think you have reason to be concerned. However, I don't have access to the recipe so what do I know. There may not be enough acid to matter. If you are dubious about the amount of orange juice you can always add it when the beans get to the texture that you want and then just cook it a bit longer to meld the flavors.

[bloviatrix]

There may not be enough acid to matter. If you are dubious about the amount of orange juice you can always add it when the beans get to the texture that you want and then just cook it a bit longer to meld the flavors.

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Here's the recipe:

2 T olive oil

4 c chopped onion

1/4 c chopped garlic

1 cup diced celery

2 lb smoked ham hocks

1 3/4 c black beans

6 c chicken stock

2 c orange juice

3 T chile power

1 T minced serrano chiles

2 bay leaves

1 T thyme

1 T fennel seed

1 1/2 T oregano

1/2 t ground cloves

1 1/2 t ground cinnamon

salt and pepper to taste

3 cups diced tomatoes

1/c c chopped cilantro

Heat oil in pot. Add onion, garlic, celery -- sweat until they begin to get golden. Add everything but tomatoes and cilantro. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Partially cover pot and continue simmering until beans are soft. Let soup cool. Skim off fat. Remove bay leaves. Shred meat off ham hock and return to soup. Heat soup through and season. Just before serving add tomato and cilantro.

Do we think the chicken stock will sufficiently dilute the orange juice?

[Rachel Perlow]

Does the book have any guidelines on the type of beans used? That quantity seems to indicate a can of beans to me. If you're using dried, I'd do the hour in the oven method to get them most of the way cooked before starting the rest of this recipe.

[bloviatrix]

Does the book have any guidelines on the type of beans used? That quantity seems to indicate a can of beans to me. If you're using dried, I'd do the hour in the oven method to get them most of the way cooked before starting the rest of this recipe.

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He says 1 3/4 c black beans, soaked overnight and drained.

I'm beginning to lean towards pre-cooking using Russ's method, but I wanted to get the collected wisdom of eG before I did anything.

[fifi]

I agree with Rachel on this one. I would bet that the beans are precooked or canned. That quantity looks really close to the contents of a standard can. I also note the tomatoes in there. Between the orange juice and tomatoes, I can't imagine starting with dried beans would work very well. It would also make some sense that it may mean canned. That much acid in the recipe would keep the beans from getting any mushier.

edit to add: Ooops We cross posted. Just soaking them overnight just doesn't sound right to me.

Edited January 14, 2005 by fifi (log)

[bloviatrix]

I've been thinking about this a bit more. Instead of precooking my beans, maybe I'll just add the orange juice to the pot once the beans reached the desired tenderness. Do we think that would work?

[fifi]

What about the tomatos? I think what you are proposing would work but I would leave out the tomatos as well. I know this can be a problem. I got a frantic call from my nephew one day. He was making a pot of pintos to take to a cook-out. He had decided to tinker with the recipe and added some diced tomato. Five hours into the mission and the beans were still not tender and had an unpleasant texture. He was running out of time and I told him to just start over. Using the same batch of dried beans, he started over. The beans were lovely after about two hours so we know that it wasn't a case of old beans. He added the tomato, cooked a little while longer and went on his merry way.

[Rachel Perlow]

After an hour in the oven, the small white beans I used (actually, great northern) today were still quite toothsome. Even after another hour with the other soup ingredients, not all were meltingly soft. So, I think that hour of precooking won't harm the recipe any.

[bloviatrix]

What about the tomatos?

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The tomatoes get added at the very very end, so they won't be any problem.

[fifi]

After an hour in the oven, the small white beans I used (actually, great northern) today were still quite toothsome. Even after another hour with the other soup ingredients, not all were meltingly soft. So, I think that hour of precooking won't harm the recipe any.

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Interesting. I had an experience with some white beans recently. These were Goya brand white beans (great northern) with a "use by" date of late 2005. I had sauted some onion and garlic in olive oil, put in the beans, water and salt, brought the whole thing to a boil then put into a 250 F oven. This was in the little LC with the lid on. Normally, these beans are done within two hours or less. The odd thing was that the beans were "spotty." That is the only way I know to describe it. I would pick up a bean to test it and see some sort of white patches on the bean and those would be relatively hard spots. I kept going but nothing was changing so I finally gave up and put them in a container in the fridge while deciding if I should throw them out and start over. (I was going to use them in a short cut, lazy man's cassoulet type dish with some turkey confit. That never happened but that is another story.) A couple of days later, I warmed a small bowl of them to have with my lunch and they were fine.

All of that says to me that beans can be perverse. I concur with the precooking.

[Rachel Perlow]

Ah, you did what I did with my soup... Soaking after cooking. That rest in the fridge, or off heat on the stove, finished everything up to the same doneness. Also, in a way, these are stews, and everyone knows that stews taste better after a couple days in the fridge.

[andiesenji]

I have some notes on beans from a show by Curtis Aikens. He gave a "quick-soak" method for turtle beans or black beans for a vegetable stew. I have several of his shows, and the ones by John Ash, taped as they were right after each other on Food TV a few years back. I looked through some of the hundreds of tapes I have but couldn't find the particular one but do have a notebook in which I recorded some interesting (to me) side notes.

That morning he had washed and picked over the beans, put them in a bowl and poured boiling water over them then allowed them to rest for half an hour, then drained them and again added boiling water and left them to soak for an hour. They were then ready to be drained and added to the vegetable broth along with the rest of the vegetables. This sped up the cooking time considerably.

[Wolfert]

re the acid inhibiting the cooking of beans.

I have a wonderful recipe for red wine-flavored beans. It uses the prohibition of cooking beans in acid to great advantage. The beans cook very slowly and absorb the flavor of the wine, which loses its acidity on account of the slow cooking, becoming mellow by the time the dish is fully cooked.

[jayt90]

After an hour in the oven, the small white beans I used (actually, great northern) today were still quite toothsome. Even after another hour with the other soup ingredients, not all were meltingly soft. So, I think that hour of precooking won't harm the recipe any.

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These were Goya brand white beans (great northern) with a "use by" date of late 2005.

All of that says to me that beans can be perverse. I concur with the precooking.

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I wonder if the 'use by ...2005' date indicates 2004 harvest. I would think Goya would want all of that crop sold by the time they have the next crop in the warehouse.

The only way to be sure of getting fresh beans is to talk to the seller, on the farm or at a farmers market.

[Abra]

No science here, all faith. I totally trust John Ash's recipes. Everything I have made from that book has been delicious and has worked exactly as written. I think of it as one of the most reliable books in my collection. So, I'd do whatever he says and have faith that it will be excellent.

[fifi]

re the acid inhibiting the cooking of beans.

I have a wonderful recipe for red wine-flavored beans. It uses the prohibition of cooking beans in acid to great advantage. The beans cook very slowly and absorb the flavor of the wine, which loses its acidity on account of the slow cooking, becoming mellow by the time the dish is fully cooked.

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Thank you, Paula, thank you. I have often wondered about wine and beans. I never have tried it, assuming that the acidity would retard the cooking, but I never took the wondering so far as to realize that the wine would lose its acidity and that ultimately all would be well. I don't know why I have never just tried it. After all, depending upon the wine, there really isn't a lot invested.

[bloviatrix]

I thought I'd report on how the soup turned out...

In the end I decided to that I would follow basically follow the recipe, but add the orange juice once the beans were properly cooked. And the soup turned out to be amazing. The soup was extremely rich and flavorful (I used veal stock instead of chicken). Very hearty -- one of those soup as a meal type dishes.

The soup is served with a pineapple-banana salsa, which was cool and the contrast of the hot and cold was really nice. Furthermore, the dollop of yellow in the murkey brown of the soup looked pretty.

Thanks everyone for helping me think this one out!