Cooking beans

According to experts, the older the beans, the drier they are, and the longer it takes to fully rehydrate and soften them. The experts also claim that they lose their flavor after a year in storage.

• My kitchen tests found these to be unfounded myths. I cooked two batches of black turtle beans side by side. One batch was 3 years, the other was 3 months old (counting from harvest time). Both batches cooked to softness at the same time, and there was no noticeable difference in their flavor. I also cooked beans that were in storage for at least 10 years. They had excellent flavor.
• Cooking time increases with higher altitude and harder cooking water. The recommended cooking time on packages is far too long, no matter what the circumstances. I tested the cooking time for kidney beans with package directions given as 1 to 1½ hours after overnight soaking for a tender stage. The beans (cooked at sea level in soft water) were fully tender in 25 minutes.
• Start testing a cooking pot of beans 30 minutes before the recommended time is up, then drain them as soon as their texture is to your liking. Those destined for mashing as refried beans need to be cooked a little softer. Beans for soup, salad, chili and baked dishes can be more chewy.
• If you live in an area with very hard water, the beans may never cook to a soft and tender stage. Calcium and magnesium, the salts which cause water to be hard, chemically react with some components in the beans and retard the rehydration process. If you have this problem, use bottled or softened water for cooking beans. Adding molasses to the beans keeps them from softening, too, because it contains calcium.
• Another important thing to pay attention to is acidity of the cooking liquid. Legumes soften in a neutral cooking environment, and the process speeds up under alkaline conditions.
• Baking soda (an alkali) accelerates cooking. So, should you add baking soda to speed up cooking? Some people swear it also lessens the negative effects of beans in your digestive tract. I tested the softening effect of the recommended 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of beans. It shortened the cooking time by about 5 minutes. But for 5 minutes gain it is not worth it. Baking soda actually destroys some of the nutrients (particularly vitamin B) and adversely affects flavor.

• While alkalis speed up cooking a little, acids virtually halts it. In acid conditions beans simply refuse to get soft. Here is what happens. The skin of the bean is a carbohydrate that is held together with insoluble organic substances called pectins.
• Cooking changes this glue to soluble pectins which slowly dissolve and that is the way beans turn tender. Acid changes the picture. The pectic substances remain insoluble even through long cooking. A mere 1 teaspoon vinegar in the cooking water of 1 pound (half kilo) of beans virtually stops the softening process.
• My first attempts at making chili taught me that lesson. I cooked the beans and removed them from the heat while they were still a bit chewy. I figured the further hour of cooking called for in the recipe with the remaining ingredients would allow them to finish softening. I added chopped-up tomatoes, spices, meat, and onion, and continued to cook the chili.
• When I sampled it an hour later, the beans were still very chewy. The tomatoes made the sauce acidic and the beans stopped softening. Many cooks learned the same lesson the hard way. Any seasoned Southwestern chili cook can tell you that.
• This can work to your advantage, too. If you don't want beans to get any softer, for example when you are making minestrone soup, add a little tomato or vinegar when the beans reached your favorite degree of tenderness and continue cooking the soup. The rest of the ingredients will go on cooking but the beans will "hold."

How much water and salt

• How much water should you use when cooking beans? Legumes expand roughly to 2½ times their dry volume when fully rehydrated by cooking. If you add more water than necessary, you end up pouring off some of the nutrients. The more the water, the more nutrients leach out.
• Too much water fades the color out, too. If you cook black beans, for instance, in the least amount of water so there is very little left over when they are done, they retain their purple-black color very well. If you cook them in plenty of water, they fade to a grayish-purple. As a rule of thumb, add 2 cups of water to each cup of dry beans you begin with. As you check for tenderness, you can add a little more if the liquid is too low.
• Should you use salt in the cooking water? Some cooks claim that cooking beans in salted water takes more time and they recommend adding salt late in the cooking process. Some even recommend cooking beans without salt. I tested both ideas, and found to be another myth.
• In the no-salt water, the same beans cooked to just about the same degree of tenderness in the same time as in the salted water. The real difference was in how they tasted. The unsalted batch was flavorless, bordering on unpleasant. Cooked in unsalted water, the natural salts of the beans migrate into the water and are lost. Add ¼ teaspoon of salt for every cup of water you use, and your beans will always taste round, nutty, full-flavored.
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Tips from the chef

• It is a good idea to use two or three different-colored beans in varying sizes to provide texture and color variation in the salad or even main dishes. It takes extra effort but not much extra time. Wash, then cook each kind of bean in a separate pot. They all vary in their cooking time, so don't attempt to cook them in one pot. Cooking them together also mutes the colors.
• If, for instance, you cook small white navy beans and black turtle beans together, the white beans become a light purplish-gray and the black beans a deadened dark purple-gray. Cooked separately, you preserve their full rainbow of colors and your salad or bean dish will look vibrant, elegant and appetizing.
• It is also a good idea to always cook some extra beans. They freeze superbly, and you will have them ready in your freezer to add to soups, salads, eggs, other vegetables, or even to serve as a side dish, should your refrigerator be on the bare side. When defrosted, they are like fresh-cooked.