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To Boil Haricot Beans

This is a method for boiling dried white haricot beans until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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To Boil Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the haricot beans in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, discard any beans that are floating.

Cook

  1. Place the soaked beans in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water and a little salt.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.

  3. Simmer the beans for about 3 hours, until tender.

  4. If the water is hard, add a tiny piece of baking soda.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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 white haricot beans
Provide the main body of the dish; they soften and become tender during long simmering.
Baking soda
Raises the water's pH, which can help beans soften when the water is hard.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender. A rolling boil can break the skins and cook the outside to mush before the inside softens. A gentle simmer lets the beans cook evenly and hold their shape.

“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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