 |
| Freshly made black beans |
- how do I use corn tortillas? do I heat them or can I eat them cold?
- how do I work with dried chilies? do I cook them, soak them, boil them, toast them?
- how do I use courgette flowers?
I've posted before my recipe for home made refried beans using pinto beans. Here I want to share with you how to make whole black beans from scratch. Once they're made, they are very versatile: you can eat them whole, as a soup (as I have done here) or you can make them into black refried beans as the recipe above. Whatever you chose to do with your beans, this post is meant to demystify the handling of this lovely pulse and to encourage you to cook them from scratch.
Don't be put off by having to cook a whole kilo of these beans, they freeze extremely well, so cook the kilo and divide it in 4-6 portions and freeze them whole. Whenever you're making refried beans or your favourite chili con carne, take them out and defrost them overnight or in the microwave.
Note: you will need a pressure cooker for this; if you don't have one and are a Mexican food enthusiast, you might consider investing in one? Argos does all sorts of pressure cookers for as little as 23 euro and you will use it many, many times in Mexican cooking.
Note: you will need a pressure cooker for this; if you don't have one and are a Mexican food enthusiast, you might consider investing in one? Argos does all sorts of pressure cookers for as little as 23 euro and you will use it many, many times in Mexican cooking.
Whole Black Beans from Scratch:
Ingredients:
1 kilo of raw black turtle beans (you can buy them here)
1/2 white onion, peeled and quartered
1 garlic clove, unpeeled but squashed
1/8 tsp of dried Epazote (you can buy it here)
1 tbs of table salt
Water from the tap (about 3 litres)
Onto the Cooking:
1.- Empty the bag of beans into a colander and rinse them well under the tap with cold water. Set aside to drain.
2.- Pour the beans into your pressure cooker; if you don't have one, you will require to soak the beans overnight in water before you start and you will need to simmer them for at least 3 hours.
3.- Add the onion, garlic, epazote and salt and then fill the pressure cooker 3/4 full with water. It's important that your beans are completely covered in water and that you have a fair bit of water above them. I used about 3 liters, but this of course depends on how big your pressure cooker / pot is.
4.- Put the lid in making sure you set the pressure gauge to 1, which means plenty of steam will escape while the beans cook. If you are using a regular pot, cover it but keep an eye on it to make sure it won't boil over and spill the beans (quite literately) all over your stove.
5.- Turn the heat on to medium and Cook the beans for 35 minutes after the the pressure cooker starts whistling, after this time, take off the heat, open the pressure cooker following all the usual precautions and check the beans, they might still be a little hard (like mine below), top the water up (remember you want them covered in water/juice). Put the lid back on and return them to the stove for a further 10 minutes.
Your beans are done! Once their cool you can divide them into portions and freeze them. I eat some of mine as soon as they were ready as a soup. I served them in a bowl with plenty of their cooking juice, sprinkled them with some fresh chopped coriander and a half of a crushed chipotle in adobo chili (like these) to ad a bit of a smoky flavour to it. My grandma used to say that one should have a bowl of freshly made black beans once a month to restore our iron supply in the body... I must say, never did I encountered sounder and tastier advise.
1/2 white onion, peeled and quartered
1 garlic clove, unpeeled but squashed
1/8 tsp of dried Epazote (you can buy it here)
1 tbs of table salt
Water from the tap (about 3 litres)
Onto the Cooking:
1.- Empty the bag of beans into a colander and rinse them well under the tap with cold water. Set aside to drain.
2.- Pour the beans into your pressure cooker; if you don't have one, you will require to soak the beans overnight in water before you start and you will need to simmer them for at least 3 hours.
3.- Add the onion, garlic, epazote and salt and then fill the pressure cooker 3/4 full with water. It's important that your beans are completely covered in water and that you have a fair bit of water above them. I used about 3 liters, but this of course depends on how big your pressure cooker / pot is.
4.- Put the lid in making sure you set the pressure gauge to 1, which means plenty of steam will escape while the beans cook. If you are using a regular pot, cover it but keep an eye on it to make sure it won't boil over and spill the beans (quite literately) all over your stove.
5.- Turn the heat on to medium and Cook the beans for 35 minutes after the the pressure cooker starts whistling, after this time, take off the heat, open the pressure cooker following all the usual precautions and check the beans, they might still be a little hard (like mine below), top the water up (remember you want them covered in water/juice). Put the lid back on and return them to the stove for a further 10 minutes.
Your beans are done! Once their cool you can divide them into portions and freeze them. I eat some of mine as soon as they were ready as a soup. I served them in a bowl with plenty of their cooking juice, sprinkled them with some fresh chopped coriander and a half of a crushed chipotle in adobo chili (like these) to ad a bit of a smoky flavour to it. My grandma used to say that one should have a bowl of freshly made black beans once a month to restore our iron supply in the body... I must say, never did I encountered sounder and tastier advise.
In Venezuela these same beans are cooked with just onion, garlic and salt (but don't add the salt until the beans are cooked). Then, sometimes at the very end of cooking a mixture of tomatoes and bell peppers are added (often but not always with anneto, garlic and onion as well). After being served at dinner, they are often mashed the next morning and served with sugar on top! Sometimes they are served plain and other times made into a filling for Maize "empanadas" to make those you need Harina Pan (the Venezuelan version, not Mexican) but I've see that in Asian shops all over Ireland and I buy it to make Harapas.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Joseph Terrazzos taught me his grandmother's Mexican bean recipe and an important part was turning the stove on and off (this is without a pressure cooker). When I got to Ireland and was cooking on a turf stove I learned why, because on a wood or turf stove you keep moving the pot, forwards and back, forwards and back to the "hot and cool" spots on the stove to prevent burning. It really does seem to help with thickening the beans, though I don't always bother on an electric stove.
Adding 1 tbsp of oil to the beans is recommended in my pressure cooker book, but isn't needed for bean pot beans. Cast Iron pots make great bean pots,but you have to watch for burning in any stove-top (non-pressure cooker) beans.
Thanks for the comment Melodi... I suppose every cook has a way of doing things, recipes and techniques vary from family to family. I always share here the way I do things in my kitchen, most of it is all trial and error, my granny, for example, would be horrified if I told her your book suggests oil in the pressure cooker. She never uses it and the beans taste lovely, but the whole point of cooking is that we can experiment with different flavours, methods and techniques. A friend was telling me that her mam would scoop all the foam in the pot of beans as this helps the beans be less heavy?!
DeleteI'm Brazilian so crazy for beans too !!
ReplyDeleteI don't have a pressure cooker and I find that, if you soak the beans overnight, you really don't need one. Plus the soaking and boiling of the beans in a open pan, for the first 10-15 minutes cooking, helps reduce the amount of gases, an unfortunate and well known side effect of eating beans... Bay leaves added to the cooking water is also said to help. And like Melodi above, I don't add any salt until the beans are soft, as salt hardens the skin and they so will take longer to cook.
White rice and black beans, the soul of Brazil! :)
Oh I love rice and black beans Magali!! In Mexico we call them 'moros con cristianos' (Moors and Christians). I use to eat them a lot! thanks for reminding me of that!
DeleteHere's another technique. :) I know the general wisdom has been not to salt beans until after they're cooked, but brining them overnight actually helps to soften the skins (the science behind it is that some of the calcium ions in the skin are replaced with sodium ions, which makes the skin more permeable to water). So, I brine 500g in 4 litres of water with 3 T sea salt for 8 hours or overnight. Rinse then cook normally. I've found most beans cook in about an hour after this treatment.
ReplyDeleteSorry, make that 3 T normal fine salt.
DeleteCool! that's a great tip Bill... I know my granny puts the salt in the cooking, just thought she was seasoning in advance! :)
DeleteI've found that fresh beans tolerate the early addition of salt better than older ones; but in general I either soak my beans over night and-or (fast track them) by pouring boiling water on them and having them sit for about 1 hour. Then I change water and rinse, this does lose some vitamins but it is the only thing I've found that really works to get rid of most of the "side effects" of beans; I used to add American baking soda but found it didn't really help nearly as much as rinsing (this is true of all dried beans not just black ones).
ReplyDeleteWhen the Brazilian students used to cook black beans at my student apartment, I noticed that while the Venezuelans tended to add either bacon or ham; the Brazilians were open to adding a lot more variety of meats. I gather their "national dish" (Magali can let us know for sure) has a number of different meats in it. I've had this at "Carnival" and it is pretty good, though personally I like the bacon or ham versions a bit better.
The "Basic Southwest" beans that are sort of "Tex-Mex" (really Arizona Mex) are my husband's favorite. They are just pinto beans, cooked until soft then add one piece of bacon and a tea spoon of salt. Sounds really bland, but they are fantastic but need a very long time to cook. Joseph's Grandmother's Mexican ones were similar but added onion and garlic to the cooking, which he said was always at least 24 hours.
I keep trying to get a good vegetarian black bean recipe that I really like (I've managed it with Pinto's now) but am still trying to get there. The black beans are strong flavored and really seem to "need" something and if it isn't meat, well onion and garlic don't seem like quite enough.
Great recipe and great postings! Lets here from more folks who love beans!
We do in Mexico something call 'Frijoles Charros' (Rancher's Beans) and we add bacon, chorizo, sausages and tomatoes and onions to it, it's delicious, I'm fascinated by all the different ways people cook beans! :)
DeleteOne of my neighbours is Brazilian. Black beans & rice is on the table at least once if not twice a week. I've always wondered how she did it. Thanks Lily!
ReplyDeleteGlad to have solved the mystery Caitriona! :) I really like the combination of white rice with black beans, it's very nutritious and tasty!
DeleteI really enjoyed this recipe and the comments... I haven't cooked dried beans since my restaurant days (except for lentils and red split lentils, of course, which cook in about 30 mins), when we had a pressure cooker, so I needed a refresher and some seasoning ideas.... my pot of black beans is soaking now, after soaking overnight, and I can't wait 'till their done!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you liked the post Ian! Let us know how they turned out! :)
Delete