Dried Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sort the dried beans to remove dirt and pebbles.
Wash the beans thoroughly.
Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water.
Drain the soaking water.
Cook
Place the beans in a pot with enough cold water to cover them generously.
Bring the water to a boil.
Drain the beans again.
If the beans are old and hard, add a piece of baking soda the size of a large bean to the soaking water and the boiling water.
Return the drained beans to the pot.
Cover them with boiling water.
Add 1 tablespoon of salt for every quart of beans.
Cook the beans slowly with the lid partially off until they reach the desired tenderness.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Dried beans
- Form the main body of the dish and become tender and creamy through slow cooking and soaking.
- Baking soda
- Raises the cooking water's alkalinity, helping old, hard beans soften more evenly.
- Salt
- Seasons the beans as they cook, flavouring them throughout rather than only on the surface.
The step that matters
Cook the beans slowly with the lid partially off. Gentle simmering keeps skins intact while the starches soften; a hard rolling boil can break the beans apart and leave them unevenly cooked.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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