One of the oldest issues with beans is salt. Conventional wisdom says not to salt too early or the skins will get tough but you want to salt long before you serve so the salt has a chance to get into the bean and not just salt the liquid. I salt when the the beans are somewhat cooked and smell of beans is in the air, not just the aromatics they’ve been cooking with.
I’ve heard that salting too early is a myth and I’ve made beans where I’ve salted at the start and the beans came out fine. I think maybe a little grainy but maybe it was my imagination. I’ve also had beans, crops I knew were fresh, take hours too long for no reason. I think this is why I’m a little shy to salt at the beginning.
Reader Kate Stavisky writes: I am a long-time reader of your site and I did finally order some beans from you late last year — yum, yum! I LOVE beans. I do make some effort to buy local beans, but yours are so fantastic that I don’t feel TOO guilty shipping them cross country (I live in Massachusetts). I figure, at least they don’t need to travel in refridgerated trucks, right?
Anyway, I subscribe to _Cooks Illustrated_ and in the most recent issue, they suggest soaking beans — almost brining them — in salt water, which you then drain off, doing the actual cooking in unsalted water. They say that this makes the beans’ skins more tender. You seem to know a lot of "bean lore" — I was wondering if you happen to know if there’s any precedent for this in traditional settings? I did try it and the skins were meltingly tender — but I worry that I’m draining off a lot of nutritional value with that salted soaking water.
Just thought I would ask you if you had any wisdom to share on the subject!!
I’m sticking to my old ways just because I’m becoming a grumpy old man and I like to think I have things like this figured out. What do you think?
As another who appears to be rather rapidly sliding towards, or perhaps embracing my, grumpy old man-i-tude, I have to say I am dubious about most so-called brining techniques. In the case of proteins, it is almost always nothing more than making up for poor quality meat by pumping it up with water and salt. It ruins the texture of meat and renders the pan drippings useless. But then, I’m a really big gravy fan… I’m with Steve and salt beans in the middle to late period of the cooking. I’ve have had good results for the 20 odd years I’ve been cooking beans and see no reason to change my method.
I tried the CI recipe as well using some Rancho Gordo beans (I think canelli?) I did not find them to be tender at all, in fact the beans, despite cooking longer than usual ended up being quite tough to the point that a bunch got trashed. There could have been other things at play, but it isn’t something I want to try again.
I think you should do a controlled experiment. On video. With sound and everything. It’s not like you don’t have the beans. 😉
Long live the Grumpy Old Men. My niece was amazed that I knew who the Be Good Tanyas were, and almost fainted when I told her they were on my cd player. Then there was the discussion about the downloads on the William Fitzsimmions site. Not to mention that I was the one who turned her on to the free downloads at the NIN site. Growing old can be fun. BTW, the garbanzos made an EXCELLENT hummus. Tomorrow I will make a black bean soup with the order that arrived yesterday.
I don’t generally salt the beans until they’re at least soft enough to “give” a bit on the spoon.
I just made some chicken vegetable soup with the Yellow Eyes I bought at the Ferry Plaza market.
The soup was fantastic, and I’ve not had any problems with RG beans. Prior to that, I always thought beans were too much trouble…wrongo!
I too have been in the camp of salting the beans at the end of the cooking, when I got the CI with the brined beans I was sceptical but since I am a big fan of brining, I wouldn’t think of cooking a chicken or turkey without brining, I gave it a try with some pintos I was going to refry. Well the beans came out creamy and wonderful, but would they have been the same without the brine?