Few things are more gratifying than making beans from scratch. By from scratch I mean from dried beans, the kind you soak. What other main course costs less than two dollars to make, is delicious, and nutritious, and serves 4?
If I were a planner-aheader (which I most certainly am not) I would make beans from scratch every week. Because they require some time to make—not hands-on time, just simmering hours—they make it to our table much less often than they should.
I don’t have a recipe, the ingredients are: a bag of beans, an onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, some Better Than Bouillon, lots of cumin and a glug or two of wine.
Tonight we had our beans with a bit of crumbly white cheese, rice and a baby kale salad with avocado and creamy lime dressing.
Rose photographed her own plate (below).
Do you put salt in at the beginning or wait until the end? I have heard many seasoned home cooks tell me to put the salt in at the end. Apparently it makes the beans hard if you put salt at the beginning. My Nana put some salt in at the beginning and her beans always turned out fab! (In fact, if memory serves you tasted some of those when she was alive.) I have stopped putting salt at the beginning because I cook my black and pinto beans down to a refried state, basically I mash them up with a potato masher when they are all the way cooked and just keep cooking until they are reduced to the right texture. If I were to put salt at the beginning the final product would be way way too salty. I also tried a method from an Italian grandmother where you put everything in the pot with cold water, bring to a boil, then cover with the fire off for 45 minutes and then kick it up again to simmer. This worked out really well, I think it’s like a rapid soak. BEANS! It’s what’s for dinner!
I put salt in towards the beginning, around the time when I might want to start tasting them for seasoning. I find it hard to get the flavor right without the salt. I’ve read the same mixed reports about whether it’s okay to do this or not, and decided that it is. The beans always get soft eventually. Like you, I use a potato masher to release some of the starch, but I don’t totally mash them, it’s more of a semi-mash.
yep, I do a semi-mash so there is still bean texture. Yikes this is making me hungry!