I cooked red beans for 2 hours, it turned out garbage. how to cook it correctly? and got the best answer

Answer from Oksana [guru]
in this case it is important to know: How to soak beans
Soaking the beans in water before boiling is beneficial for two reasons: This process softens the beans and returns moisture to them, which shortens the boil time.
When soaked in water, oligosaccharides (sugars that are not digested in the human body) dissolve in water, causing gas formation and complicating the digestion process.
The water in which the beans were soaked is always poured out and the beans are boiled fresh.
The water level should be 5 cm higher than the beans you are soaking. When you soak, the beans will triple, so you need a large saucepan. Best soaked overnight or at least 8 hours. If you soak the beans for too long, they can ferment. If you don't have enough time, you can use the quick soak method. On this day, boil the beans for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and set aside for 1 hour. Then drain the water in which the beans were soaked, pour fresh and cook until tender.
Beans and lentils must be sorted out before cooking, removing shriveled beans, pebbles and twigs, and then rinsed in cold running water. The canned beans should be washed too, so that the finished dish will look better.
... strict distribution of beans by variety and color. Mixing and cooking different varieties together is not only inconvenient, but also negatively affects the quality of the dishes.
In general, beans are the most capricious and difficult to boil legumes. But green beans, that is, unripe beans, are cooked quickly and well. They prepare longer than others - American large, white flagole, Ukrainian white (ordinary). Slightly faster than their predecessors: Bulgarian dwarf white beans, Ukrainian variegated beans, Mexican red beans and Cuban black beans.
Beans should be boiled in cold water so that the water barely covers the top, over very low heat, without touching or interfering.
Since beans of any kind are cooked longer than all other vegetables, longer than fish and meat, they have to be cooked separately and added to the dishes after they have been fully cooked.
In the same way, beans are prepared separately for vegetable cereals and side dishes, mixing them with other vegetables already in a ready-made, boiled form.
The beans are salted only after its final readiness and even after the complete preparation of the bean dish. So, for example, mashed beans are salted only after the beans are puréed, and not after the end of their boiling.
To enhance the flavoring accent, beans require onions, tomatoes, savory (especially the latter; it is not for nothing that savory is called "bean spice" in a number of languages).
Whipped bean puree accepts oil well - vegetable and butter.
+++ Beans
Red beans
Red beans (kidney, kidney beans) are shaped like a kidney. It goes well with savory tomato sauces, onions, garlic and rosemary. Kidney is one of the main ingredients in many Creole and Mexican dishes, in particular chili con carne. But this type of beans has one insidious feature: raw grains contain toxic substances, so it cannot be germinated, and before cooking it should be soaked for at least 8 hours, be sure to drain the water and only then cook until cooked for at least an hour.
look / read the link and everything will be = OK.

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hey! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: I cooked red beans for 2 hours, it turned out garbage. how to cook it correctly?

Answer from Liana Baeva[guru]
No need to soak, just simmer - one hour is enough.

Answer from Andrey Suvorov[guru]
Pour with water, you can overnight, for 2-3 hours, add a pinch of soda during cooking, you can add cold water, cook for 1-1.5 hours !!))

Answer from Just kseniya[guru]
You must first soak in cold water for at least 6 hours (usually soaked overnight), then pour the water in which it was soaked and pour it fresh, cook until cooked for 1.5 hours.

Answer from Irina Pazina[guru]
When boiling beans (as well as peas), add a little baking soda to the water and do not salt until the end of cooking. This method cooks the beans much faster.

Answer from Yoowushka[guru]
You need to soak the beans overnight. And when you cook, there is such a nuance., Moreover, an important one is to cook until half cooked, and then DRAIN all this water! Pour boiling water over and cook with new water, salt, pepper, herbs. ... The fact is that if you do not drain the water, BEANS are VERY BITTER!

Answer from Fantasia[guru]
it had to be soaked overnight and then the soup was cooked as usual

Answer from Yovetlan-Ka![guru]
It's okay ... Moscow was not built right away either !! ! It's just that when the beans boil, you need to drain the water from it and pour it cold, and so on several times until it becomes cooked !! ! Good luck to you!

Answer from Di[guru]
nado bilo sna4ala zamo4it, gdeto na noch, a potom varit

Answer from Irendot *[guru]
And what happened? Two hours for red beans is not even enough)

Beans are a representative of the legume family, the benefits of which almost everyone has heard about. Delicious, nutritious, with a set of vitamins and microelements "in full", the culture that is in second place in terms of the number of amino acids after meat seems to be "destiny itself" is intended for any table. However, those wishing to cook it often face the problem of the bitterness of the beans. Therefore, before looking for recipes with beans, it is worth finding out why it is often bitter and can the unpleasant taste be removed?

Why are beans bitter?

Most types of beans in their raw form contain the toxic substance phaseolunatin glycoside, which contains hydrocyanic acid, which is dangerous to the intestines. Added to this is the effect of oligosaccharides - special sugars that the human body cannot digest, which causes bloating and poor digestion. Due to these components in its composition, the beans acquire a "warning" bitterness, which, as it were, reminds a person of the danger. The green, just ripe pods of the plant are the most toxic.

Beans of any kind cannot be consumed raw. If you forget and feel bitterness - remember why the plant is bitter! Fresh poisonousness is beyond doubt.

But not everything turns out to be that bad. And well-dried, fairly fresh beans are perfect for consumption, subject to heat treatment.

Proper cooking methods - how to remove bitterness

The presence of beans will make any dish healthy and tasty. But it is very important to properly cook the beans themselves, so as not to guess later why the magnificent dish created according to all the rules of the recipe turned out to be bitter.

The easiest option is to buy beans in cans. The product is rolled there already boiled, and extra work will not be needed to get rid of the bitterness. It is enough to drain the liquid from the jar, rinse and dry the beans slightly. Great for salads and dishes in which these beans are not the main ingredient.

For every bean lover who wants to get its full "vitamin set" for himself, it is important to know the basic methods of cooking beans in order to eliminate their bitterness.

Method 1. Pour dry beans with water and cook until tender

They use only very fresh beans, from the time of the assembly of which no more than two months have passed.

In tropical countries, where beans are harvested twice a year, the question of why it tastes bitter is not worth it at all. The beans are almost always tender and easy to boil. Another question is what crop year they will export for export. Old "fruits" can taste bitter and seriously.

You can also cook crops from your own garden, but without delaying too much time after harvest.

Method 2. Soak for a long time in water, then cook

• Prolonged soaking for 12 hours. Water is replaced with fresh water at least three times so that the bitterness actively disappears.
• After 50 minutes of boiling, the water is drained and a new one is poured.
• Boil again for the same time and drain.
• Cook in third water until tender.

Soak old beans longer and change the water more often. For cooking, pour a large amount of water so that the bitterness is better washed out. In hot weather, soaking is carried out in the refrigerator so that there is no souring and germination. You can cook the dish directly with tomatoes or tomato paste. Their acidity will in no way prevent the beans from getting rid of bitterness and becoming edible.

Fast soaking and cooking:

• The washed, selected beans are poured into a cooking container.
• Pour three glasses of water for 1 with beans.
• After waiting for a boil over low heat, cook the "five minutes" at the maximum.
• Without cooking, to get rid of bitterness, leave in the broth for 3 hours.
• Pour it out, pour it over again , and cook for 60 minutes.

Salt can be used as desired. Its quantity is important.

At the beginning of cooking, the beans are salted half as much as if they are done at the end of the process or after being cooked. It is not recommended to salt soups of different recipes during cooking.

Method 3. Use temporary salting of beans

In this method, bitter beans are converted into edible beans using a saline solution.

"At the exit" you get beige beans without bitterness, delicate taste. At the same time, their integrity is violated very rarely.

Cook over low heat. You can replace it with an oven, where you can cook for an hour or an hour and a half at a temperature of 120 degrees Celsius. .

Method 4. Cooking without soaking with seaweed

The taste of beans becomes exotic and attractive after boiling them with dried leaves of Japanese kelp. At the same time, soaking is not needed and that the beans were previously bitter, and there will be no memories.

Ingredients for 4 liters of water: 2 cups dried beans, 1 large flat spoon of salt, and a piece of dried seaweed (10 x 10 cm, 20 x 5 or other sizes).

Cook until tender. The taste is pleasant. In this case, substances that contribute to gas formation in the intestine are washed out. At the end of the process, it is better to discard the cabbage, and use the rest for cooking.

When cooked in any way, the finished beans begin to sink to the bottom.

"Tips" for the cook

• Take large dishes. Otherwise, beans that have swollen in 2-3 sizes will not enter.
• If there is no time to frequently change the water - to wash out the bitterness, you can add a soda solution to the soaking water: for every 2.5 cups of water, a fourth of a small spoon. Then rinse with a running stream and immerse it in a soda solution doubled in concentration for a couple of minutes. Rinse.
• The usual cooking of beans without soaking takes almost 4 hours, the integrity of the beans is possible.
• So that it does not acquire a dark shade - cook in a saucepan without a lid.
• As the water boils away, actively add water.

For the soup, cook first in a separate container until half cooked, then in a common broth.

3 ways to check if beans are ready:

1. Pull out 3 pieces, try it. If completely soft, pull it out. The first "tasting" in 40 minutes from the beginning of cooking in the last water.
2. Pull out 1 piece, blow. If the skin is broken, we take it out.
3. Mash the caught beans. If it works out, there is readiness.

Average cooking times for beans:

• Red: 50 minutes - 1 hour, soak 8 hours or more. The multicooker cooks half an hour longer.
• White: 10-15 minutes less, with a soak of 8 hours or more. Without soaking, at least two hours are enough. In a slow cooker on the "quenching" mode, it ripens in one hour.

If the beans are bitter after boiling

Why is it that beans remain bitter after boiling? There can be three reasons for this:

• The beans are grown incorrectly, therefore they contain a large amount of harmful substances.
• It was harvested too early and handled incorrectly.
• The "fruits" are old and were not in proper storage conditions.

In this case, the option to eliminate bitterness simply does not exist. A dangerous product must not be eaten.

Everyone has heard about the incredibly beneficial properties of beans and how important it is to include such a product in their diet, but not everyone wants to cook beans if they are bitter and have an unpleasant aftertaste. Unfortunately, the peculiarity of some varieties of beans is just that; long-term and often incorrect storage also leads to bitterness! Despite this, the chefs still cook beans, coping well with their "shortcomings"! How do they do it?

How to remove the bitterness of beans?

It turns out that there are some tricks for cooking beans, thanks to which the product ceases to taste completely bitter and acquires excellent taste, while maintaining all the nutritional value.

• Soaking for a long time, about overnight, removes the bitterness. It is only advisable to replace the water with fresh water at least three times during the soaking process. Naturally, the beans are soaked before boiling.
• After the start of cooking, when the beans have boiled for 45-50 minutes, you need to drain the water and replace it. After boiling again, repeat the procedure and after that cook the product until tender. Water during cooking, in order for the bitterness to boil down as much as possible, you need to pour more than usual.
• Very old beans, which have a strong taste of bitterness, must first be soaked correctly, and then during the cooking process, replace the water several times, each time draining everything that is cooked from the product during the boil.
• If boiled beans, which are bitter even after boiling, are wrapped in a bag after cooling, and put in a freezer for a couple of hours, let them freeze, then after thawing, some of the bitterness of the product will come off.

By boiling the beans using these simple tricks, you will completely eliminate the bitterness aftertaste. If, nevertheless, for some reason this does not work out and a slight aftertaste of bitterness remains, you will need to try to “muffle” the remaining aftertaste by adding some specific additives in the preparation of the dish that can hide the taste of bitterness. For these purposes, you can use ordinary vinegar, peppers, mustard and other sauces and spices, but such additives are not suitable for any dish, rather only for salads and bean snacks.

What if the bitterness has not gone away from the beans?

Rarely, of course, but it happens that beans, even after such treatments, do not cease to taste bitter. The fact is that, most likely, your product is of poor quality, or the beans were improperly grown and contain a large amount of harmful substances, or the beans were harvested too early and later they underwent improper processing before they were packed into bags. Or maybe the product is completely old and for a long time it was simply stored incorrectly!

There are no options to remove the bitterness! Such beans need to be thrown away, because such a product is spoiled, and it will not be able to bring anything good to your health, unless it just does harm! In no case should you eat such beans, especially do not give them to sick people and small children!

Probably everyone has their own secrets of cooking beans, as well as prejudices about how they should and should not be cooked. What are your secrets? What do you believe in?

In addition, there are people who do not bother with cooking beans at all, but buy them already boiled in cans. Canned beans are very suitable for salads, etc. filling stations, i.e. "non-salted" soups, in which a bean broth is not required and, in general, beans are the third violin, like borscht with beans or minestrone.

Canned beans are usually always whole (depending on the brand), with a delicate skin and tender "pulp", slightly salted through and through. The liquid is drained from it and thrown away. It is slimy and tasteless. The beans are washed under running water, dried on a sieve and used in salads and dressing soups. Photo from here

I never buy it because I don't have such a habit. For me, beans are dry beans from my garden or from the store. And for those bean dishes that we eat at home, canned beans are simply not suitable.

It is very convenient to rinse and strain canned beans directly in their own can in this way
- at one end of the can, make several punctures with an opener
- turn the can over the sink with the holes down and open the can with an opener from the opposite end.
- rinse under running water directly in the jar and use the recipe.

In recent years, culinary publications have debunked many myths about boiling dry beans and have proposed some very interesting cooking methods. I'll tell you about them today.

In all the methods listed below, we are talking about the average beans: not just from the garden, i.e. dry, but very, very "fresh" beans, which are cooked very quickly without any grimaces and jumps - they just fill it with water and boil, and not about very old dry beans, which are a hundred years old at lunchtime, which have been lying on store shelves for years and a few more years in your home, and which requires a very long boil to boil until tender.

Method 1. Take dry beans, add water and cook until tender suitable only for very fresh beans, beans of this year's harvest, which are well, a maximum of a month or two in age. In the tropics, beans are harvested a couple of times a year and beans on sale are almost always very tender and easily boiled down even without soaking. In more northern countries, you can also run into very old beans in packs or in barrels by weight, so old that they do not boil even after several hours of cooking, they remain stone.

You can cook beans with or without salt - whatever you like. It is a myth that cooking with salt makes beans tough or prevents them from "boiling dry". The only thing to remember about cooking with and without salt is that when beans are boiled with salt from the very beginning of cooking, you need 2p less salt (to get the same taste for beans) than when beans are salted at the end of cooking or after readiness. I cook without salt only if I need a very rich and rich bean broth for watering chowders, bean puree soup and similar dishes.

Beans can also be boiled or stewed with tomatoes, tomato puree. The fact that cooking in an acidified environment prevents beans from boiling is also a myth. In order for the acid to prevent the beans from boiling, there must be VERY much of it, more than usual in edible bean dishes.

Any other bean cooked this way will have a coarse rind and a grainy core. Which, by the way, some people like.

With further boiling, you get a slurry with bean skins and the contents boiled out of them. Something like dumplings with potatoes, bursting and empty during cooking.

Method 2. Soak in water for several hours, then cook. You can cook in the water in which the beans have been soaked, or you can drain that water and fill it with fresh water (so that the stomach does not swell so much from the beans) - as you like.
This method, oddly enough, reduces the cooking time of the beans a little and does not make the skin softer or the middle tender.

In addition, if the beans are soaked in the hot season, then it is important to soak them in the refrigerator, otherwise they will sprout or sour in the heat in the kitchen, and soak for no longer than a day, even in the refrigerator, otherwise they will get worse - instead of swelling, they will wrinkle and after cooking it will be very tasteless. Photo from here

I only use this method when I cook thick bean stews (like Indian dal) that I eat by sprinkling them on rice. those. so. Photo from here

For them beans are soaked with bell peppers, cut into very large pieces, then boiled beans with it until soft. Then the pieces of boiled peppers are thrown away, and the chowder-gravy is seasoned (with spices, spices, browned vegetables, etc.) and boiled until tender.
Dahl is cooked and served on rice in much the same way. Photo from here

Method 3. Salting beans for a few hours. In this method, a 1.2% "brine" is prepared (12 g per liter of water, 2. tsp without top, fine salt), pour beans into them (1 cup of beans, a liter of salted water) for 8-24 hours at room temperature T. If it is hot at home (30-35C, not 20-22C), then soak in the refrigerator for up to a day.

Then drain the water and wash the beans on a sieve under the tap. Pour clean fresh water and cook, preferably with a little salt, again (or a piece of bacon, corned beef, etc., and spices)!

The result is extremely creamy beans, with a delicate skin and a core that is completely silky to the bite. They cook faster than usual and remain intact, i.e. are not inferior in quality to canned beans, only tastier. But, of course, it is necessary to cook on low heat, not to allow a very violent boil. They are very intact even when languishing in the oven at 250F / 120C for 1-1.5 hours. Photo from here

Why does soaking in brine help to make the beans and their skins soft, and why drain the soaked beans if you then add salt to the water in which the beans will be boiled?

The answer is this. The secret of the hard skin and the gritty-grained center of the bean is that the skin contains calcium and magnesium salts. In this sense, it looks like the shell of a chicken egg, which no matter how hard you cook, you cannot make it soft. When soaked in brine (water + NaCl), sodium from salt displaces calcium and magnesium from the skin, which makes it more permeable and water and salt easily penetrate into the beans. Picture from here

Beans swell well, brine through and become firm and tender. And calcium and magnesia migrate into the brine, which makes it "hard": if you boil it, then after cooling, films and flakes of hard "salt" will settle on the bottom and walls of the dish, as when boiling any hard water. And in hard water, as you know, it is generally bad what is cooked and boiled until soft. You can't even make tea with hard water! Therefore, the hardened water after soaking the beans is drained, the beans are washed under running water and poured with a fresh portion of "soft" drinking water.

Method 4. Cooking without soaking with a seaweed leaf. This is the most interesting method for boiling beans. Firstly, there is no need to soak the beans, and secondly, the strongest and richest taste and aroma of beans is obtained both for the beans themselves and for the broth / bean broth. But, of course, in this case, you need to have on hand the leaves of dried seaweed - Japanese kelp, which is exported from Japan and sold under the name kombu (kombu).

The beans are as silky-soft on the outside and on the inside as when soaked with salt and cook just as quickly as if they were soaked. And at the same time, the stomach does not swell from the gas either! In this sense, a leaf of dried seaweed in a pot of boiled beans works wonders.

For a pound of beans (450-500g, 2 cups of dry beans), take 4L of water, 1 tablespoon. beh the top of the salt and a piece of 10x10cm (or 20x5cm, etc.) of dry seaweed. cook until the beans are ready, i.e. try to taste, tk. fresh, regular, and very old beans are cooked at different times.

After cooking, the seaweed is taken out and thrown away (although it is edible!), And the rest, both the broth and the beans, are used for cooking.

During cooking, in addition to kombu and salt, you can add what you like - onions, spices, etc. Photo from here

Some people do soak beans with kombu, but the American Center for Recipe Testing (January / February 2012 issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine) concluded that soaking with kombu (or not) is unnecessary. business.

Interesting, isn't it?

Next time I will tell and show you how to cook beans (or any other legumes) not just in a saucepan or even a pressure cooker, but in a rice cooker (for some reason in Russia it is multicooker sell!). It turns out that a rice cooker, if it's the right size for your quantities of beans, is the best way to cook both beans and dishes from them, simply because in the rice cooker the beans will never burn or stick to the bottom (the rice cooker turns off when he notices that the water has evaporated). Oh, how many times have my beans burnt in the pressure cooker - you can't count! Well, you don't need to stir and the beans turn out to be as tender and intact (if you need one) as when languishing in the oven, but without the expense of electricity, firewood or gas as for an oven.

How do you cook beans? And in what dishes? share your secrets, please.