As part of my plan to increase our meatless meals, I have set a personal goal of learning how to cook beans and lentils in tasty ways. I figure it shouldn’t be too hard; I regularly pick up delicious bean, lentil, quinoa and grain salads for lunch. However, cooking out of my head isn’t one of my stronger talents. I rely on resources at my disposal, including How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.
This excellent book describes what a multitude of food items are (kasha what now?), how to cook them, and tasty ways to create meals with them. Hence, for my first self-assigned project (multi-bean salad), I turned to HtCEV. Turns out, you don’t have to soak beans for a day, as I’ve been doing with my chickpeas. Apparently, a 2-minute boil followed by a 2-hour soak in the boiled water equals an 8-hour soak in cold water. Who knew? I created a 5 Bean salad, including red kidney beans, Romano beans, black beans, Adzuki beans and green beans. Here’s the recipe, plus some thoughts I have for improving it in future:
Part 1: Cooking your beans
Pick over and rinse 2 cups dried beans, any variety. Place in pot and cover with water by 2-3 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat and boil for 2 minutes. Turn off heat, cover pot and let sit for 2 hours. Add a large pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper, bring the pot back to a boil and boil, partially covered, over med-low heat, checking tenderness of beans every 10-15 minutes.
The trickiest part is that some beans cook through more quickly than others. In my case, the kidney beans were almost mush by the time the Adzuki beans were tender enough to eat. I'm wondering if I should cook all my beans separately next time? Perhaps. I could do a large batch of each; apparently to store them you freeze them in some of their boiling liquid.
This excellent book describes what a multitude of food items are (kasha what now?), how to cook them, and tasty ways to create meals with them. Hence, for my first self-assigned project (multi-bean salad), I turned to HtCEV. Turns out, you don’t have to soak beans for a day, as I’ve been doing with my chickpeas. Apparently, a 2-minute boil followed by a 2-hour soak in the boiled water equals an 8-hour soak in cold water. Who knew? I created a 5 Bean salad, including red kidney beans, Romano beans, black beans, Adzuki beans and green beans. Here’s the recipe, plus some thoughts I have for improving it in future:
Part 1: Cooking your beans
Pick over and rinse 2 cups dried beans, any variety. Place in pot and cover with water by 2-3 inches. Bring to a boil over high heat and boil for 2 minutes. Turn off heat, cover pot and let sit for 2 hours. Add a large pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper, bring the pot back to a boil and boil, partially covered, over med-low heat, checking tenderness of beans every 10-15 minutes.
The trickiest part is that some beans cook through more quickly than others. In my case, the kidney beans were almost mush by the time the Adzuki beans were tender enough to eat. I'm wondering if I should cook all my beans separately next time? Perhaps. I could do a large batch of each; apparently to store them you freeze them in some of their boiling liquid.
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| I couldn't get a picture to do justice to how cool these beans looked while cooking. The water was completely black. |
Part 2: 5 Bean Salad
2 cups dried beans cooked as per the above, still warm
2 cups green beans, cooked to tender-crisp
1 tbsp red wine vinegar or lemon juice, or to taste
2-4 tbsp minced red onion or shallots
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more to taste
1/4-1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
While the beans are cooking, stir the vinegar and onion together in a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil. Drain both types of beans and add them to the bowl with the dressing while they are still hot. Toss gently until the beans are coated with dressing, adding more oil if you like. Serve at room temperature or cold, stirring to distribute the dressing. Stir in the parsley just before serving, and adjust the flavour to taste.
I think you need more vinegar than listed, but I love tang. I think if you are going to use shallots (as I did), you need more, as the flavour is subtle. Not sure if using red onions. I used frozen green beans; they're not very good, but what are you going to do in February? I pulled this all together late Monday night and ate it for lunch Tuesday (and likely, Wednesday and Thursday...). Good stuff.
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