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How to Treat A Bean Right, Because Recession

There is a whole wide world of different beans and legumes, from the humble navy bean stewed down to maximum heartiness to the elegant black lentil tossed in a lemon and dill vinaigrette topped with poached salmon. Unfortunately I see a ton of people just dumping some beans out of a can onto a plate and wondering why their McDonald's cued palates can't stand them. My dudes, beans are a staple in nearly every culture and they didn't get that way by unseasoned tinny chalk balls. Here's how to bean.

Selecting Beans

Beyond skipping over the canned when you can, not all dried beans are created equal. While they have a super long shelf life in regards to safety and not inculcating anything that would give us a food born illness they have a shelf life of about one year max in terms of quality. This means that the dusty bag on the bottom of the shelf in a suburban grocery store full of non bean eaters might do you wrong unexpectedly. Cooking will take longer, they may never actually get creamy, you may have a lot of withered "floaters" that never soften. Your best bet (in the USA) is to hit up stores that cater to Hispanic populations or vegetarians. Bulk bins are a great sign but not 100% necessary. A Mexican grocery store near me has bulk bins of pinto, black beans, and occasionally mayocoba as well as fresh(!) chickpeas on occasion. A trip to whole foods or a natural food store will net me cannelini beans or great northern beans and a whole rainbow of lentils that even when buying fancy pants organic are still cheaper than almost any other food staple. Have an Indian or Ethiopiangrocery store near you? Stock the heck up, and grab spices while you are there. More on that later. The only beans I really buy at big box supermarkets are ones that have them stocked near the middle height of the shelf (spots reserved for higher turnover items) and bags of 15 Bean Soup.

Bean Prep

Once you have your beans look them over a bit before you cook them. A quick rinse in a large bowl of water to get any dust or dirt off, make sure there are no small stones mixed in, and toss any withered up floaters you see.

I have taken a lot of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's great research and food science to heart and he and Daniel Gritzer have a pretty exhaustive bean guide up on Serious Eats if you want the chemistry but the short take away is you only need to soak thicker skinned beans, soaking can take away some of the quality variability if you don't know if the beans are fresh, soaking can leach away flavor and nutrients of thin skinned beans like black beans, and you should cook your beans with salt.

If you are soaking you want to put your beans in a large container like a bowl or a Cambro, and cover them with cold water that is about twice their height. If you have an inch-thick layer of beans you want two inches of water above them. Let them sit 8 to 24 hours then cook them up.

Don't add acid until after cooking, and if your tap water has a low pH to where you find beans don't seem to get tender you should cook them with a smidge of baking soda. Start off with half a teaspoon per pound of beans in order to not effect the flavor too much, and adjust as needed to figure out hour much you need depending on how hard or soft your water is. (Most people will not have to adjust their water pH though, this is just outlier troubleshooting.)

Bean Cooking Methods

My Granny knew what was up with pressure cookers. And now that they are improved so much with new model stove top ones and electric ones like the Instant Pot where the risk of blowing beans into your ceiling is negligible it's one of the best investments for any home cook, even outside of the bean diet. If you don't want to get one though you will need a large pot with a lid on the stove or a dutch oven in a 250F oven with the lid slightly offset

Pressure cooking lets you skip soaking without consequence more than any other method, even with older beans. You don't have to worry about evaporation while cooking. It gives you the maillard reaction throughout the liquid unlike a dutch oven which only accomplishes it on the perimeter (and not at all with the slow cooker), and it's fast. With an electric one you automate the entire process as well.

Pressure cookers allow less evaporation so you will want your bean to water ratio to be less than other methods but soaking comes into play. I'm about 900 feet above sea level. For soaked beans I cover them with one inch of water above the level of the beans, for unsoaked I cover with two inches of water. If you are at a higher altitude unsoaked beans might require more water. For pots and dutch ovens two inches over soaked beans and three inches over unsoaked will be adequate.

Timing will depend on the bean and the method. Smaller beans cook faster, soaked beans cook faster. They're done when they are creamy inside and firm outside with few exceptions such as red lentils. THe best way is to just check the package or google what type of bean for which method you are using

Bean Seasoning

Here's the real rub for me and my real inspiration for writing this. Y'all under season your beans. Entire wars weren't fought for spice trade routes just so people could

forget what a bay leaf was. Your basic template for flavors is going to be Aromatic + Cooking Liquid + Acid. I know it sounds like a lot going on, but frequently one ingredient can cover multiple elements and just two our of three elements will take you far.

Aromatics

• Charred onions or caramelized onions • Mirepoix or trinity • Minced garlic and/or ginger • Fennel • Herbs such as bay leaves, rosemary sprigs, thyme sprigs, sage, cilantro, parsley, oregano, epazote, tarragon • Spices such as cumin, cloves, cardamom, turmeric • Spice blends such as garam masala, Cajun seasoning, Indian curry powder blends, BBQ rubs, Berebere • Chilis. Jalapeno, serrano, dried guajillo, canned chipotles in adobo, hatch chilies, canned diced green chilies. Just chilies.

Cooking Liquid

• Stock or broth is bare minimum. Get Better than Bouillon or a similar concentrated stock paste if you don't want to make your own but if you ever buy a rotisserie chicken you should really try making your own. l've used miso paste before when I had nothing else on hand. • A few shakes of Liquid Smoke. • Canned diced tomatoes (with or without chilies) • Some shakes of Fish Sauce AKA Nam Pla • A bit of Worcestershire • A glug of wine • Some beer (maintenance mode)

Acid

Once it's finished cooking a little acid can go a long way. A splash of vinegar, a squeeze of lime or lemon, hot sauce buffalo sauce, and suddenly the dish has new heights and depths.

[ HEADS UP FROM ALT TEXT ADDER: DO NOT ADD ACID WHEN COOKING IN A CAST IRON POT. It will react to the material and make everything taste nasty. This includes tomatoes! ]

Bonus

A bit of chorizo. Nduja. Some thick smoked ham, or even a bone from a smoked ham. A few sausages. A smoked turkey leg. Tasso. Andouille. A few slices of diced bacon. If it's meaty and salty and you don't have enough to make a meal of it use it as a flavoring agent in beans,

Storing Cooked Beans

Fridge 'em for 5 or 6 days without issue in a covered container or freeze them. Beans freeze wonderfully and you can bulk cook these, put some in a quart ziplock bags and freeze them up to 6 months. This is a great way to cycle through different flavors or types if you are getting burnt out.

Bean Flavor Combos

• Black beans + bell peppers, onions, garlic + bay leaves

• Black beans + onions + orange peel + all spice

• Black Beans + cumin and onion + cilantro + lime

• Pinto beans + onion and jalapeno + cumin and epazote

• Pinto beans + bacon + canned green chilies

• Pinto beans + chorizo + cilantro

• Pinto beans + dried chilies + tomatoes + unsweetened cocoa powder + cumin t smoked meat

• Pinto beans + dried guajillio peppers + leftover smokedmeat + apple cider vinegar

• Pinto beans t bacon, onion, serrano t can of diced tomatoes + bay leaf, cilantro

• French lentils + garlic, onion, celery + herbes de provence

• French lentils + caramelized onions and bay leaves + white wine vinegar

• French Lentils + dill and tarragon + lemon juice • Red beans + Cajun seasoning + fish sauce

• Red beans + trinity + bay leaves + tabasco

• Red beans + Cajun sausage + collard greens + vinegar

• Great Northern beans + diced tomatoes + oregano and basil

• Great Northern beans + Italian sausage + apple cider vinegar

• Great Northern beans + mirepoix and garlic + chicken thighs + parsley, bay leaf, cloves + bacon

• Great Northern beans cooked with oregano and fish sauce, drained and mixed with olives, artichoke hearts, lemon juice

• Great Northern beans + diced tomatoes + dill, parsley, oregano, hint of cinnamon

• Chickpeas + diced tomatoes + fish sauce + liquid smoke

• Chickpeas + diced tomatoes + curry powder + ginger and garlic

• Chickpeas + bacon + dried chilies + lime juice

• Chickpeas + garlic and cumin + tahini + lemon juice

• 15 bean soup + Old Bay + sausages + spinach + lemon juice

• 15 bean soup + Old Bay + sausages + spinach + lemon juice

• Red lentils + cumin, ginger, and garlic

• Red lentils + onion + curry powder

• Green or brown lentils + jalapeno + turmeric, garlic, ginger + diced tomatoes

• Green or brown lentils + mirepoix + berbere + lemon juice Green or brown lentils X berbere + ginger and garlic X • fish sauce

• Green or brown lentils + mustard powder + diced tomatoes with chilies + lemon juice

• Mung beans + mirepoix + ginger, cumin, jalapeno + lime • Mung beans + diced tomatoes + trinity + kale

• Navy beans + ham bone + bay leaf and onion