Cooking with Dry Beans and Peas

Todd Parr wrote:

r ranson wrote:bottom burps

Lol, excellent.

Or when you're adding to the bubbles in the hot tub, make sure the jets are ON first. :)

Two years ago I tried these brown soup peas. https://www.saltspringseeds.com/products/carlin
They are called Carlin
I am in zone 3 in central BC Canada.
They grew beautifully and are the best tasting soup peas I've tried so far.
Unfortunately the pigs got out this year and ate all my peas.
So I will be ordering more in the next couple weeks.

Does anyone know where I could get s couple seeds of the grey soup pea mentioned earlier?
We LOVE pea soups.

We enjoy recipes made with the beans from the garden. Especially the runner beans which have a wonderful flavour. But this can be made with any bean.

This is in the way of a savoury crumble.
I sweat onions, leeks, chopped carrots and celery in a mixture of butter and olive oil. Garlic is optional - i.e. whether I have some handy or not. I add some flour to soak up the oil and then add some stock slowly making a thickened sauce, then add beans or dried peas that have already been soaked and cooked.

I make the topping with flour, butter, salt, pepper and herbs. Roughly rub 4 ounces of butter into 8 ounces of flour until it resembles breadcrumbs and add the seasoning. Then I put a handful of oats and a tablespoon of mixed sunflour and pumpkin seeds and mix in.

I spread the topping over the bean and mixture without pressing down and pop in the oven at 180°C for around 35 mins or the the top is toasty brown

Serve with a savoury vegetable gravy (or if you are British,  Bisto!), and some sprouts, or broccoli and mashed potatoes.

The bean mix can also be cooled and made into pasties with a butter shortcrust pastry and are great hot for lunch or cold for picnics.  
Enjoy!

Recently cooked a batch of white beans that had some green peas in the bottom of the jar. Cooked them together. The result was white beans in a thick pea gravy. It was an excellent combination. Serendipity.

I enjoy beans of all sorts & cooked many ways. The one I have most experience growing & eating is pinto beans. I make what is called charro beans or TexMex beans. Boil the beans. Some pork or other seasoning meat. Add onion, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno &/or other peppers, salt, and the secret ingredient chili petin pepper. Then big gobs of chili powder & cumino. Reduce heat to a simmer & until the beans are soft & the gravy thickens. Adjust seasonings to taste during the cooking process. It's supposed to be spicy!!!

Next step .... put it on some enchiladas or guiso arroz. Es muy bueno comida mi amigos.

Si, Stevie Ray Vaughan habla caliente frijoles. WHAM!

I grow lots of beans and dry them. when I need some I can a load from dry.
Favoyrite recipe?
Black beans, cooked till soft
Golden syrup, or sweetener of choice
3 eggs, 3 oz or so of soft butter or melted coconut oil.

Whizz up till thick and creamy.
Fold in dried fruits, nyts, choc chips to taste
Fold in drinking coco tovtaste. Bake in a medium tray until just cooked.
Leave for 24 hours, if you can.

I like to cook pea soup, there were no problems with digestion)

Hi im trying to make split peas soup for the first time and only could find the whole yellow pea, i washed and let them soaking over night. I boiled them but now all in my water is the peels or skin and no peas, my question is do i puree with the skin ( peels)  or just drain off thw water?

Let's share recipes, talk about cooking tricks, nutrition, and yes, even growing dry beans and peas.  What's your favourite variety?  What's you most profound bean related experience?  Do you have a bean related book you love?

Please share recipes.  Especially recipes that highly the more frugal nature of dry beans and peas.




I grew my first dry beans and peas a couple of years ago.  I was shocked with how easy it is to grow and harvest.  It's the true do-nothing crop.  Then, in the midst of my celebration, I realized one crucial thing.  I had spent a year, planing and growing these pulses.  Caught up in the enthusiasm, I never stopped to think how I was going to eat them.  I had no idea how to cook them.  I despaired.  Then I got over it and learned how to cook dry beans.

First I started with Indian food and lentils.  The recipe actually came from a nurse that was tending my Grandfather, who had recently immigrated from Northern India.  Her recipe was very simple and delicious.  It went something like this:

Indian Lentils: Wash some lentils and soak them while you prepare the other ingredients.  Get an onion, leek or other similar thing, chop it up fine.  Fry it in butter or ghee until translucent.  Add garlic if you like.  Chop up some herbs extra fine and add them, or use dry spices like turmeric (lots of this), cumin, salt and pepper.  Add spices or herbs to the onions, stir it around a bit.  Drain the lentils, add them to the pot.  Just cover with fresh water, and cook until done.

So I did this, and within half an hour I had a big pot of what she called Doll (which I later learned was actually Dhal - my ears weren't use to her accent so that's why I got it wrong).  Making this Dhal was revolutionary for me.  I started cooking all sorts of pulses to discover what I liked.  


I discovered that chickpeas, lentils and fava beans have a much easier to digest fibre than most other pulses.  This is good to know if you are on a low fibre diet.

Chickpeas go amazing in a stir fry.

There are a lot of different 'right' ways to cook beans, and all of them work some of the time.  None of them seem to work all of the time.  But I love gathering up all the lore for cooking the perfect pot of bean.

Pulses are forgiving and far easier to cook than I originally thought.


One of the books that made a huge difference in my adventure with beans is The Resilient Gardener.  Another was Hip Pressure Cooking (both book and website).  We can even make our own Miso Paste from almost any kind of bean.

I got some neat ideas about Growing Fava Beans from the good people at permies.com (hey, that's you guys).

Once I made the decision to buy a pressure cooker, it changed how I approach beans in the kitchen.  Before the pressure cooker, if I wanted to cook chickpeas, I needed to have a good 4 hours dedicated to the task.  Pressure cooker does it in 14 min.

Another thing that has me very excited about beans is a new book that's coming out, The Power of Pulses.  It's all well and good knowing that beans are healthy, good for you, good for the environment, and all that jazz.  It's another thing knowing how to cook them.  I really hope this book is going to be as good as it's hype.

Yet another fun thread about Growing Yellow Split Peas.  Anyone ever done this?  Maybe you can pop over there and offer some hints and tricks.   I love split peas.  They cook up so quickly and have a fantastic creamy texture.

looks great and seems test good, will have a try

All seeds, including beans have lectins, phytates and enzyme inhibitors in them. Once the seed sprouts many of these disappear. Therefore, soaking them, allowing them to begin to sprout and then cooking them at high temperatures make all seeds safer to consume. I use a ferment created from rice soaking/souring that I use in my beans and other seeds to soak them. I soak beans for a minimum of 24 hours and then I let them sit for at least another 24 hours with a couple washes. This allows them to continue to sprout. The sour soaking water or even some acid added to plain water in the initial 24 hour soak will assist the process.

Here is the nutritional/biochemical explanation:

Phytates are largely found in the outer hull of seeds. Phytic acid is the primary storage compound of phosphorus in seeds. It is strongly negatively charged and the phosphate in phytic acid strongly binds to metallic cations of calcium, iron, postassium, Magnesium, Manganeese and Zinc, making them insoluble and thus unavailable as nutritional factors. The process of fermentation, and sprouting can be used to remove phytate from seeds.

Enzyme inhibitors inhibit seeds from sprouting but they also inhibit our digestive enzymes. This can lead to all manner of mild or serious digestive problems. These enzyme inhibitors prevent the seeds from sprouting until just the right conditions come along. The right conditions are usually water, warmth, and slight acidity such as found during fermentation. So, just as with phytates, soaking, or fermentation can remove enzyme inhibitors.

Lectins can be a benefit to humans or they can make you ill depending on the type of lectin. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are present in both plants and animals. Some lectins cause sensitivity/allergy reactions. Data suggests that lectins are also inactivated by soaking, sprouting, cooking (high temps like boiling) and fermenting.

Beans are especially high in lectins. Kidney beans are more of a problem than the rest. Kidney beans contain a high level of a very toxic and immunogenic agglutinin called phytohaemagglutinin. They need to be carefully cooked until well done. Boiling or pressure cooking is suggested for kidney beans. Soybean agglutinin (soybean lectin) and concanavalin (an agglutinin in jack beans, which are often used in animal feeds) have been shown to increase epithelial permeability in the digestive tract, much as wheat germ agglutinin does.

I wrote an article on soaking seeds here: https://youarethehealer.org/food-as-medicine/recipes/removing-anti-nutrients-from-food/   The example I give on soaking seeds is for rice, but I do talk about beans in the article too. I am finishing up an article on corn allergy and intolerance that will have a lot more data on lectins, enzyme inhibitors and phytates. It will be on the blog at my website next week.

I took some pinto beans out of a storage jar several years after purchase and presoaked, changed water and boiled for 8 hours. They were still crunchy and tough. Looking it up , I found that other people have similar experiences with old beans: they refuse to get tender. I was determined to use them, so I put them in the blender and made refried beans out of them. I will try to eat beans before they get old, but at least there's a way to use tough beans in lean times.

Mark Trail wrote:I took some pinto beans out of a storage jar several years after purchase and presoaked, changed water and boiled for 8 hours. They were still crunchy and tough.

Mark,
I've had success cooking old beans in a pressure cooker. I generally presoak the beans and cook them under pressure 5 to 10 minutes. Stove top pressure cookers cook faster than an Instatpot.  With either method I let the pressure drop naturally.

Old beans are a bit more iffy timing wise. If the beans are still a tiny bit hard I finish them off on the stove top, but this is generally not an issue.

Your suggestion about grinding the beans into a flour is an excellent way to use old beans, because one can then use it anywhere pureed beans are used.

Just about any kind of bean will grow here as long as it can take the hot summers.  My favorites are black beans.  

Shredded chicken is optional.
Black beans.
Lots of cilantro.
A few cups of pico de gallo (peppers, tomatoes, onion, little garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper)
Salt
Pepper
Cumin

You can use any kind of pepper you want from chipotle to hatch chilli as long as it has at least a little kick.

I have two recipes for you.  The chickpea one is delicious, fast, and easy and requires dried chickpeas.  It's from Mark Bittman, who has a lot of quality, simple recipes. https://heated.medium.com/a-very-good-and-very-simple-pot-of-beans-e74758cbb0a8
Chickpeas, Provençal Style
Time: 1 to 2 hours, mostly unattended
Makes: 4 servings
Ingredients
½ cup dried chickpeas (about 12 ounces), rinsed and picked over
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 thick slices French or Italian bread (day-old is fine)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
¼ cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
½ cup chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish
Instructions
    Put the chickpeas in a large, deep pot and add enough water to cover them by about 3 inches; bring to a boil over high heat. Adjust the heat so the beans bubble gently and cover. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, then taste a chickpea to check for doneness. If the chickpeas have begun to soften, add a large pinch of salt and several grinds of black pepper, if they’re still hard, return the lid to the pot, keep cooking, and check them every 10 or 15 minutes until it’s time to add the salt.
    Continue cooking, checking and stirring every 15 minutes or so, until the chickpeas are quite tender but still intact, anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes after you’ve added the salt. If at any point when you check the beans they look dry, add enough water to keep them covered by about 1 inch. (For the most flavorful broth, try to keep the chickpeas submerged by no more than 1 inch of water as they near the end of their cooking time.)
    While beans cook, heat the oven to 400°F. Roughly tear or cut the bread into bite-sized pieces and spread them out on a baking sheet. Bake the bread, turning once, until it’s lightly toasted, 10 to 15 minutes. It doesn’t have to be warm when you serve it, so just let it sit until serving time.
    Meanwhile, keep checking the chickpeas every 15 minutes or so. When they’re fully tender and just starting to break apart, stir in the garlic and the olive oil; taste and adjust the seasoning. To serve, put the bread in shallow bowls and spoon in the beans and some of the cooking liquid; drizzle with about 1 tablespoon more olive oil if you like and garnish with the parsley.
4 ways to vary these chickpeas
1. Add 4 ounces chopped prosciutto, smoked ham, or cooked sausage or chorizo to the pot when you add the garlic in Step 4.
2. Garnish with chopped almonds or hazelnuts instead of or along with the parsley.
3. Sprinkle the top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
4. When you add the garlic, add ½ cup dried tomatoes to the pot.

*****************************

The next one is probably Greek. I remember ordering it in a favorite Chicago Greek restaurant.

Gigantes: Baked Lima Beans with Dill
Servings: 6  Time: 1 hour
*NOTE: This recipe is made using dried beans, not fresh. If cooking from scratch, soak 350g of large dried lima/butter/Greek Gigantes beans in water overnight, drain, and then cook in a large pot of boiling for 30-50mins (till cooked through but not mushy). Alternatively, you can use three 400g cans of cooked lima/butter beans, drained and rinsed.

Serves 6.
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 1 hour

—
I have several recipes for this dish. I like the flavor and always use more dill than called for. I've also adjusted this recipe to simmer the dried beans in the flavored tomato sauce (hold the salt until the end). I just add more water to cover the beans and watch them to make sure it doesn't get too dry. I like the flavor that the tomato sauce gives to the beans.  While this recipe calls for an oven bake, I've had good results on the stovetop as well. Having a heat spreader helps. It's a flat, heat-conducting disk that sits between the flame (heat source) and the bottom of the pot. It helps to even eliminate hot spots in gas, electric, and IH ranges.
http://homespuncapers.com/2015/11/05/gigantes-baked-lima-beans-with-dill/
Gigantes: Baked Lima Beans with Dill

80g | 1 small onion, finely chopped
80ml | 1/3 cup olive oil (+ more to serve)
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp sea salt (+ more to taste)
2 x 400g tinned diced tomatoes
760g | 4.5 cups cooked lima / butter / Gigantes beans. *See note
30g | a handful of fresh dill, finely chopped (+ more to serve)

Preheat oven to 180C.

In a dutch oven or saucepan over high heat, cook the onion in the olive oil for 2 min till softening before adding the garlic, thyme and salt and cooking for another 1-2 minutes till fragrant and starting to colour. Add the tinned tomatoes and beans, bring to boil and stir through the dill. If your pot is not oven proof, transfer the beans to an oven proof dish. Bake uncovered for 50min, till sauce has reduced a little and beans are soft.

Season to taste and serve with extra dill, drizzled with olive oil and maybe even some almond feta. Serve alongside your favourite salad, bread to mop up the sauce or with roasted potatoes. Is great as part of a mezze spread, barbecue or pot luck. Will keep refrigerated for up to five days, freezes well.

I have a garden now and have purchased a number of bean packets. Yay!  But how do I dry them?  Do I just let them sit on the vine until the vine itself dries up?  Can I pull them off the vine, shell them and dry them in cold storage. Will using my dehydrator destroy them?  All suggestions, recommendations, comments, and giggles are appreciated.

My preference is to get them inside as soon as I can. I'm pretty sure the monkeys will find the garden and eat everything down to the nubby stub.

Be sure to look to your local (or online) Indian Foods store for a very wide variety of dried beans and pulses.  

The packaging is minimal, the bag sizes are usually large and the contents are fantastic.  I bought  I think 12 oz of dried whole peas which made a delicious soup and a really tasty addition to samosas. I created a folder called Online Food Resources where I have at least 7 sources of Indian foods. They're all in Japan so ask if you want the list. Here's one AmbikaJapan But just Google for Indian grocery or something like that.  I hope that, like me, you are pleasantly surprised.

Cheers, and good eating.

Barbara, I harvest peas & beans then spread them out to dry.  In my hot & humid climate they usually get moldy keeping them on the vine. I think a dehydrator would work good on the lowest heat setting.

Barbara Manning wrote:Be sure to look to your local (or online) Indian Foods store for a very wide variety of dried beans and pulses.  

The packaging is minimal, the bag sizes are usually large and the contents are fantastic.  I bought  I think 12 oz of dried whole peas which made a delicious soup and a really tasty addition to samosas. I created a folder called Online Food Resources where I have at least 7 sources of Indian foods. They're all in Japan so ask if you want the list. Here's one AmbikaJapan But just Google for Indian grocery or something like that.  I hope that, like me, you are pleasantly surprised.

I agree! I have been buying really neat varieties of beans etc at Indian stores for many years.
And weird though it may seem, the cheapest places I have found have been non-grocery stores run by people from India, who want familiar food, and it's cheaper to order in bulk, so they order in bulk and sell the excess. Stores like gas stations, laundromats, and fabric or video stores. I'm startled sometimes with where I find stuff in the back corners.  

My favorite store in the last place I lived was a gas station, that turned the old mechanic bay into an import shop. Found a similar one in this area, it's a gas station and convenience store type place, with a back room full of beans, flour, and spices. I stopped randomly for gas, and have made it a regular stop now.

Mike Barkley wrote:Barbara, I harvest peas & beans then spread them out to dry.  In my hot & humid climate they usually get moldy keeping them on the vine. I think a dehydrator would work good on the lowest heat setting.

Thanks for this.  I live at 2700 feet in the National Forest. It's pretty dry in the summer but I'd hate to lose a season of beans because I don't know enough.  I have a cheap dehydrator, but you've just given me the excuse I need to buy a new one with multiple heat settings. The lowest setting on my electric oven is 170 C. I think that will cook the beans.

When people talk about legume-related digestion problems, what does that mean or look like? I intuit from the discussion that it's just farting, but I fart all the time regardless of what I eat and don't really consider it a problem. So I'm wondering if it's something else.

My family cooks about two pounds of dry beans per week and we keep grocery store canned beans in the pantry which get occasional use as well. We'll use the instant pot if we're in a hurry, but the beans are markedly better if we cook them low and slow in a clay pot and let the water evaporate into the perfect bean liquor.

I normally put the beans in the pot and cover with 2-3 inches of water and add aromatics. Then put the lowest heat I can under the pot and leave it that way for about three hours. At that point there are bubbles on the surface and it's steaming, but hasn't reached a simmer. Then I turn the heat up and bring it barely to a simmer. I'll leave it like that for another two to four hours, checking and stirring occasionally to make sure it's the right heat and the beans don't burn on the bottom. All this time it's had a loose-fitting lid on, but then I take it off and try to drive the water off as steam, to thicken the cooking liquid. If this takes ten hours, that's fine, I work from home and can come upstairs every hour or so to check on it -- it's good to get up from my desk and take a little walk.

The aromatics I most frequently cook the beans with include some combination of: bay leaves, garlic, onions, chiles, celery, or whatever we have a lot of. Some of them get removed (bay leaves) but most stay with the beans.

They're ready to eat then as a pot of beans with a little salt and epazote, or make a chili, or soup, or frijoles.

I most like cooking a big variety of beans together this way because the little ones turn into broth and the big ones are still firm, with all the intermediate spots filled. Sometimes I let them get too soft to turn into a really proper chili, but they're good other ways and even a mushy chili is good enough.

Christopher Weeks wrote:When people talk about legume-related digestion problems, what does that mean or look like? I intuit from the discussion that it's just farting, but I fart all the time regardless of what I eat and don't really consider it a problem. So I'm wondering if it's something else.

My family cooks about two pounds of dry beans per week and we keep grocery store canned beans in the pantry which get occasional use as well. We'll use the instant pot if we're in a hurry, but the beans are markedly better if we cook them low and slow in a clay pot and let the water evaporate into the perfect bean liquor.

I also like the low-attention all-day cooking with aromatics. I use an electric crockpot for this,  because I can leave it coming even with no one home.  I like to add a palm-sized square of kombu which adds some mineral salts and is supposed to make them tender. It pretty much dissolves into the beans.

I add kombu sometimes too, but it's way up high on our pantry shelves and easy to forget. I virtually always add it when making veggie-scrap broth. However, mine retains substantial body even after ten hours and it's one of the things that gets removed like bay leaves. I wonder what's different about our experiences.

Tobias Ber wrote:pea soup is a big thing in germany. my mother often made it, i m not sure if she still does. i think, she made a huge batch and put many small portions into the freezer.

we use dried green beans. probably peeled.

Traditional Quebec pea soup is made with whole yellow peas (and some form of smoked pig, although I've made decent a vegetarian version with liquid smoke). It takes forever to cook and it should be made thick enough that your spoon will stand upright in it Very filling, full of fiber and heart-warming in winter. If you're looking for a recipe, the one from local chef Ricardo is a good traditional one (Just google "pea soup Ricardo").

I give mine a little Hungarian spin by adding lots of paprika and will often throw in some shredded greens (Not traditional, but it fits the creative thrifty spirit of my ancestors. My grandma - who was a great cook - would would certainly have used up some wilted greens in soup. When in doubt, I ask myself "What would Grand-Maman do"? ).

Christopher Weeks wrote:When people talk about legume-related digestion problems, what does that mean or look like? I intuit from the discussion that it's just farting, but I fart all the time regardless of what I eat and don't really consider it a problem. So I'm wondering if it's something else.

For some people that might mean more serious symptoms like cramps or diarrhea. Although, in my experience, tolerance to beans does build up over time if it's just a question of getting used to a higher-fiber diet and building up the enzymes that help digest beans (barring a true medical problem).

And even with a diet that's rich in beans, anyone will have some level of intestinal distress after a whole day of cooking class centered around pulses, like my husband did one day :)

I am SOOOO glad I clicked the link to this thread!  I have learned a ton about pulses. Information which I sorely needed, as I have had a terrible time getting beans cooked to the right consistency.  Now to put it to the test......

Christopher Weeks wrote:I add kombu sometimes too, but it's way up high on our pantry shelves and easy to forget. I virtually always add it when making veggie-scrap broth. However, mine retains substantial body even after ten hours and it's one of the things that gets removed like bay leaves. I wonder what's different about our experiences.

I don't know if maybe it depends on the type of bean or the cooking time or the thickness of the kombu. I cooked a pot o chickpeas and the kombu just broke apart into slippery bits of nothing. Then the next week I cooked a pot of black beans and the kombu stayed in a sturdy chunk that I had to remove at the end.

Mk Neal wrote:

Christopher Weeks wrote:I add kombu sometimes too, but it's way up high on our pantry shelves and easy to forget. I virtually always add it when making veggie-scrap broth. However, mine retains substantial body even after ten hours and it's one of the things that gets removed like bay leaves. I wonder what's different about our experiences.

I don't know if maybe it depends on the type of bean or the cooking time or the thickness of the kombu. I cooked a pot o chickpeas and the kombu just broke apart into slippery bits of nothing. Then the next week I cooked a pot of black beans and the kombu stayed in a sturdy chunk that I had to remove at the end.

There are different types of kelp (Kombu) and methods of preparing it for cooking use. Here's one site, but do your own research too. https://www.umamiinfo.com/richfood/foodstuff/kelp.html
I am very fortunate to be able to easily buy a variety of Kombu at local stores.

I've had a lot of success cooking dried beans in the Instant Pot or my old pressure cooker (RIP).  They seem to cook through more thoroughly without any hard parts. Nice and creamy interiors with hardly any broken skins.  I can buy giant lima beans in December, so I stock up for the year then.  They are great in minestrone soup, or season and mash them, then fry 'em up in a frying pan for a delicious main.  I've taken the fried patties and served them with marinara sauce or any spaghetti sauce, actually. Also good with BBQ sauce, or any kind of pesto or green sauce. They are so basic, that practically any seasoning, sauce, or relish will dress them up.