No-soak bean stew

[ksmith]

Yup, a food post. You’ve been warned.

Over on Facebook, Lynn Flewelling posted a link to an article about how pre-soaking beans prior to cooking was unnecessary. I perked up when I read it because I love bean soups and stews, but never made them because of the soaking step. Slow overnight soak or fast one-hour boil and soak? If you don’t do it right, you’ll wind up with bullets. It didn’t help that the one time I presoaked navy beans for baked beans, they came out hard and gritty. I just didn’t think I’d have success if I tried again.

But this article gave me hope, so. I found the recipe for black bean stew and set about chopping the onion because I knew I had a pound bag of black beans in the pantry. Except that when I looked, I found I didn’t. I did have a pound of navy beans. A year-old pound of navy beans–I remembered the day I bought them at Whole Paycheck, the good little organic shopper shoveling her beans into a bag…then sticking them on a shelf and forgetting about them. I knew beans aged and got tough over time, but I figured that all I risked was half an onion and some time. It was either try to cook the beans or use them as crust ballast for blind baking…except that I already had a couple of pounds of dried beans set aside for that purpose, yet more navy and pinto beans that I bought with every intention of cooking and never did.

Anyway, along with the onion, garlic, and chopped dried chile pepper, I added a teaspoon of ajwain (an Indian seed that flavors and also mitigates that issue with beans that we all sang about in second grade**), some herbs de provence, diced sun-dried tomatoes, celery seed. I didn’t add bay leaf because I didn’t have any, hence the other stuff.

La:

just getting started

 

Heated until it just started to simmer, then covered it and stuck it in a 325F oven. I figured that navy beans might take longer to cook than black beans, and I was right. I let them cook for close to two hours before adding the salt, checking them all the while–yes, they were absorbing liquid. Yes, they were getting softer:

getting there–about halfway through

 

After about three hours, I made tuna fish for dinner because I realized that the beans wouldn’t be done in time. Besides, anything stew benefits from sitting overnight, and I figured this would be the case with this stuff as well. I added salt and pepper–about 2 tsps salt instead of the single one called for in the recipe. Stirred and stuck it back in the oven.

At the three-three-and-a-half hour mark–the beans were still intact but creamy when chewed–I zapped the stew with the immersion blender and creamed maybe 1/3 of them.

almost finished

I also added a large squirt of ketchup because I always add ketchup to navy bean soup, and a tablespoon of vegetable demiglace because frankly I still found things a little flat. Then I let it cool and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

Today, I added a can of Ro-Tel diced tomatoes and a little more salt. It is a very thick stew–if you wanted something more soupy, you could add stock or more diced tomatoes or water. I like it thick, so I heated some up in the microwave, stuck some cheddar cheese on top, and had it with a toasted roll.

the finished product

It’s good. Yes, the beans have more flavor than canned or–from what I recall–presoaked. I was also struck by how well they remained intact even though they were very tender. Not mushy at all. Or gritty.

I bought black beans today, as well as lentils and white beans. Looking forward to making more no-soak bean dishes. They will need to cook longer, so I will have to be careful which recipes I try.

 

**also, Blazing Saddles

 

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

So if you do mixed beans, do you add them over time--black first, then red, then white?

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Nope. They all go in together. Some will be softer. That doesn't bother me. Gritty bothers me. Hard beans bother me. Floury instead of creamy bothers me. But not soft. (I think al dente is highly overrated when it comes to some foods. If you want crunchy, eat raw crunchy things--I do that. Really don't like cooked carrots except in soup or stew; prefer them raw and crunchy. But beans should melt in the mouth, all flavor and creaminess.)

But this is a matter of personal taste. It might be possible to give black beans an extra hour by putting them in an hour before other beans. I'm too lazy to do that. All in at once, cook until black beans are done, and everything else will be done too. Once I put a pot of beans on, all I have to do is wander out in the kitchen when my neck starts to seize up at the computer, check to see they're coming along, stir, put the top back on, walk off.

E

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

I mix beans a lazy way too. Large pickle jar (BIG!!!) Backup glass jar for overflow. One pound packages of every kind of bean I can find (and like) but not peas or lentils becuase they cook too fast. Pour beans in jar--look at pretty layers of color. With evil grin, put top on jar, and start rolling it back and forth. Look at pretty waves of color. Keep going. Shake, stir, roll. If all the beans don't fit in the pickle jar, do the shaking thing for awhile and then put multiples of 4 cups in the other jar (could be two cups, could be any number that's handy) and shake 'em up there. Use the small jar first.

My basic bean recipe is 4 cups of mixed dry beans. I do soak overnight, but I know not everyone does. Then rinse, then into the pot with onion, garlic, a ham bone or something, bring to boil, cut to simmer, let alone except for periodic stirring. There are variations, not important here.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing with cold cereals--I mix at least three kinds.

I never get hold of ham bones--I think one would have helped the navy bean stew immensely.