Use Your Bean!
Karen Kelly
Legumes are a comfort food with a very special place in the world's culinary hearts; every culture and gastronomic tradition has a bean-based dish that ignites both passion and longing. I once asked a clerk in a Middle Eastern market on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue, which brand of hummus he liked best. A lively argument between him and his co-workers ensued on the correct ratio of chickpeas to tahini. My Louisiana-raised friend Bonnie, now living on the West Coast, dreams about finding in Los Angeles the kind of red beans and rice she experienced growing up. An Italian-American friend's definition of la dolce vita is tossing imported tuna packed in olive oil with cannellini beans, chopped flat leaf parsley, and fresh lemon juice for a light supper.
Among my fondest childhood memories of growing up in New England are my mother's Boston baked beans. The transformation, after 8 or 10 hours, of small, hard white navy beans into a creamy amber concoction redolent of molasses, sharp mustard, and salt pork was nothing short of magic. It is a recipe I have never been able to replicate. On Sunday my father made bean sandwiches for lunch – he would spoon the cold leftovers between two slices of dense white bread, adding a slather of spicy brown mustard to round it out. “It's a delicacy,” he'd tell me, and strange as it sounds he was right.
Embrace the global and nostalgic road trip legumes take you on: they are a versatile cooking ingredient, and nutrient dense. For starters, beans contain more protein than any other plant food. Just one cup provides about 16 grams of the 50 to 65 grams we need each day, according to the American Dry Bean Board. Protein is but one aspect of beans that make them so important to vegetarians or anyone who wants to cut back on beef and poultry. “They easily displace meat in terms of protein, but also provide the B6 and folate in plant-based diets,” says nutrition scientist Ann Yelmokas McDermott, PhD, MS, LN, at Tufts University.
Folate is an important B vitamin that protects against heart disease by helping to keep homocysteine levels in the body low. High homocycteine levels increase the chance of having a heart attack, she says. “A diet low in folate (or folic acid) is also related to colon cancer. Folate stabilizes DNA; when it isn't stabilized irregularities occur that are linked to the disease.” Good amounts of iron, Vitamin B12 and calcium are found in a one-cup serving of beans as well. To access the calcium, combine beans with foods containing Vitamin C, such as dark leafy greens or orange-juice.
McDermott assurances us that as long as we eat a variety of whole foods everyday, including grains, fruits and vegetables, we'll get all the benefits of the nutrients beans have to offer. For example, whole grain cereal for breakfast one day and a bean salad for lunch the next will make a complete protein (soybeans are the only legume that has enough amino acids to make a complete protein), because “the body recycles nutrients so you don't have to eat 100% of what you need every day,” she says.
Beans are also “nature's scrub brush” because of the 15 grams of fiber that's packed into a cup. “As they go through the intestines, high fiber foods like beans scour around the millions of microvilli attached to the intestines, keeping them long and healthy, which helps cholesterol stick to food fiber and moves out of the body,” McDermott says.
Some people complain that eating beans results in digestive indiscretions. The science behind the phenomenon is simple: beans cause a sudden increase in bacterial activity and gas production a few hours after they're consumed because they contain carbohydrates we cannot digest. McDermott says the best way to reduce gas is by eating more fiber filled foods. “ Over time your body gets used to the fiber and adjusts. Movement and exercise also helps - sedentary people get in much more trouble when they eat beans,” she says. Boiling dried beans in water for a few minutes, letting them stand for an hour in the warm water, and then cooking them in fresh water reduces gassiness, but this “quick soak” method has a significant downside. Considerable quantities of water-soluble vitamins and minerals are leached into the soaking water, which is discarded.
An overnight cold-water pre soak is less damaging to the nutrients, while helping to limit the gas factor. After soaking and rinsing, cook beans in a small amount of fresh water, adding liquid to the pot as needed so nutrients stay in the small amount of remaining liquid, which can be incorporated into the bean dish you're making, suggests McDermott. Or use beans that don't need pre-soaking, such as anasazi, adzuki, lentils, and split peas. Fresh beans in spring are also quick cookers, and include fava, cranberry, and a wide assortment of pole beans.
Use the freshest dried beans possible – those that are shiny and plump. Dullness, blemishes or wrinkles are signs of age. Store dried beans in an airtight container and make a note of the purchase date – use them within 6 to 8 months. Food scientist Shirley O. Corriher and author of Cookwise, says if you do have a bag of old beans, add salt to the cooking water to soften them.
“It's a myth that salt retards the cooking process of legumes,” she says. Sugar and dairy products, on the other hand, are a different story. “Sugar and calcium prevent the glue between the cells from breaking down and dissolving,” she says, which explains why my mom's molasses-bases beans could bake for hours without loosing their shape and texture.
The interest in and availability of uncommon and heirloom varieties from small, independent growers has elevated the culinary status of beans. I have found anasazi, canary, black Valentine and adzuki beans both dried and in cans in my local supermarket, right next to that standard kidney, white, pink beans, and chickpeas. A search of the Internet turns up an even wider variety of colorful heirloom varieties: calypso, eye of the goat, falcon, giraffe, and rattlesnake. Bob's Red Mills and Purcell Mountain Farms are two of the best online sources for unusual beans – and even though some varieties are rare most are less than $4.00 a pound.
At prices like that, you can afford to take some culinary chances. Turn up the volume on classic dishes like refried beans and pasta e fagioli by substituting adzuki for pintos and soldier beans for white beans. The subtle differences in flavor of unusual beans, which ranges from grassy to meaty, may inspire new combinations (how about butterscotch beans, kale and corn salad tossed in a light vinaigrette) and prompt you to rediscover ethnic obscurities, like dfina, a Moroccan slow-cooked bean stew made with unshelled eggs, chickpeas, and dried baby lima beans.
Alfred Portale, co-owner of the Gotham Bar and Grill in New York City, has long embraced the bean. “They are important component of my cooking, starting with the French green lentils, they are so nutty tasting; flageolet beans that match so well with lamb; and the big gigandes that when cooked properly have the consistency of mashed potatoes,” says the 2006 James Beard Outstanding Chef award winner and cookbook author ( Simple Pleasures his is most recent, and it offers many bean recipes).
Portale's secret for delicious beans is to cook them in a mixture of chicken stock, water and garlic on a very low heat for several hours. “If storing beans for use a day or two later, cool them down rapidly in their cooking liquid by placing beans and liquid into a bowl and nesting it in an ice bath. Store in a sealed container and refrigerate. They remain tender without disintegrating. “If you are serving them right away leave a little cooking liquid in the beans, and add some extra virgin olive oil, which is absorbed for even greater flavor,” he advises.
The cooking liquid itself has much more value than just water. Portale adds it to recipes much like pasta water when creating bean purees and soups. An old-fashioned potato masher is his favorite tool for creating textured spreads for crostini.
If beans are excite America's best chef, it's definitely time to cook up a pot of them for dinner tonight.
Like many food purists, Portale says he has never used a canned bean. In my experience, it's for good reason: fresh dried beans have more flavor and firm texture when cooked than their canned counterparts. But tinned types are not all that bad, especially if you're making soup or a dip, it's all you have, and it's snowing and cold outside. And they may in fact be better than using dried beans that have been sitting around for a long time.
“People are paranoid that canned beans are not fresh and have undesirable additives, but most canneries are right at the field, and if you look at the ingredients on the can, it's a short list: beans, water, and salt,” says Corriher. The viscous liquid in the can that seems slightly gross is simply starch that has leached into the water and thickened it. Corriher recommends rinsing canned beans through a colander for several minutes for the best flavor; look for low sodium versions to limit salt.
“Beans have a sweetness that lends them to use in desserts,” says Gotham Bar and Grill's pastry chef Deborah Racicot, who was inspired by two recent trips to Japan to create sweets that feature beans. This past summer she combined fresh soybeans with watermelon as a surprising accompaniment to a yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit) crème brulee and tart. “I'd love to create a bean ice cream, inspired by the Japanese frozen treat that uses red beans, or a sweet bean pie,” she adds. Bean desserts have made inroads with the low-carb set too: recipes for black bean brownies are widely available online, originally created as a snack for South Beach diet aficionados. Adzuki beans can be combined with coconut milk and tapioca to make a Thai-inspired pudding. If you want to experiment with the sweet side of beans, Racicot suggests taking a page from Japanese pastry chefs, who create a sweet pastes by combining white, black or red beans with sugar and forming them into spheres. Just try it and see what you can come up with.
Serves 4
Anasazi beans are the legacy of cliff-dwelling natives of the same name who inhabited the American Southwest over 1500 years ago. The maroon and white spotted beans are one of the few crops they cultivated, according to the folks at Bob's Red Mill. They require no presoaking, and cook in about 45 minutes straight from the bag. In the bean world, that's practically fast food. Their creamy texture makes them perfect for bean dips and spreads. In this dish, you can use any root vegetables you have on hand – turnips and celery root would work well as substitutions for any two of the veggies listed here. The secret is cutting them into the same size cubes for even cooking. A salad and 6-inch corn tortillas warmed for a few minutes in the oven after it's been turned off from vegetable roasting makes this meal a complete fiber-filled package. A chilled beer wouldn't hurt either.
1 cup dried Bob's Red Mill anasazi beans (yields 2 cups of cooked beans; substitute kidney or pinto beans if anasazi beans are unavailable)
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce from a 7-ounce can; store the remainder in the fridge. If you really love the smoky heat of chipotle, add two peppers to the beans – or more!
1 teaspoon of aged balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt or to taste
1 1/2 cups of 1/2-inch cubed carrots (about 3 medium carrots)
1 1/2 cups of 1/2 inch cubed parsnip (about 2 medium parsnips)
1 1/2 cups of 1/2 inch cubed purple or red new potatoes (about 5 baby potatoes or one medium potato)
1-tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt to taste
Garnish
Handful of cilantro, chopped fine
Juice of half a lime
Lime wedges
Caribbean inspired Black Beans with Orange Infusion
Serves 2 – 4
This Caribbean-inspired recipe actually works better with canned beans, perhaps because, as Shirley Corriher asserts, sugar keeps beans from breaking down. The canned beans are cooked at a high temperature, and have broken down somewhat, so the sugars in the orange juice do not keep them from “creaming” nicely in a short amount of time as they did the beans I cooked from dried. The orange juice is a refreshing foil for the black beans. Use juice oranges if possible as they have the least amount of bitter pith, and their rinds are full of flavor. They also yield the most juice, and are available throughout the winter months. This is such an easy main course for one or two, or a side for four. Serve it with grilled plantains to add even more Island flair. If you're eating solo the leftover half makes a good filling for a whole-wheat wrap lunch the next day. I add julienne red peppers and some crumbled feta cheese to mine.
1 15 1/2 ounce can of no salt added black beans rinsed and drained thoroughly
1/4 cup of fresh orange juice, or a juice form one juice orange
1/8-cup limejuice
1/2 juice orange cut up into 8 small chucks
1-2 teaspoons Louisiana hot sauce or to taste
Water, if necessary
Serves 4 as a main course, 6 as a side dish
Canary beans are Peruvian in origin. Several brands distribute them in both dried and canned form, including Goya and Barry Farms. There bright yellow color lightens in cooking. They have a mealy but pleasant texture, and a slightly sweet flavor. This dish combines them with a bold use of herbs. Folding the herbs into the beans as soon as they come out of the oven releases their essential oils while maintaining their gorgeous color and fresh-picked flavor. Notice that just a little of the sausage goes a long way – just 6 ounces feeds 4 to 6 people. You can also make a vegetarian version of this dish by omitting the sausage – it will not have the same flavor, but it's still good.
1 cup dried canary beans (yield 3 cups cooked) – substitute navy or white beans
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
8-ounces amber or dark Mexican beer, (sip the remaining 4 ounces from a 12-ounce bottle). I used Negra Modelo. If you cannot find amber or dark Mexican beer, use any amber or dark beer or ale you like.
6 ounces chorizo or andouille sausage
1-teaspoon cumin
1-teaspoon turmeric
1/2-teaspoon cinnamon
1/2-cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2-cup chopped fresh basil
1/2-cup chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1-teaspoon fresh thyme leaves