Best Method for Cooking Dried Beans

Chef Stephen Gibbs from Hands On Gourmet, http://handsongourmet.com/, tests out a tip from Cooks Illustrated magazine... does brining beans in salt water before cooking them really enhance their uniform softness and texture??

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Hands on Gourmet
• Chef Stephen Gibbs
• Cooks Illustrated
• brining beans
• brined beans

[handsongourmet]

seattwa, that is usually the case. you rinse off a brine solution before cooking. But in this case the salt softens up the skins before and during the cooking process. I got this tip from cooks illustrated ( a very respected source) and tried this several times myself. Over the years a ton of culinary beliefs have became falsified. Science is always on the move, so don't always believe what you are taught. Experiment and see for your self.

cool beans

[handsongourmet]

drained the beans and cooked them in fresh water. We realized after we shot the video that we didn't explain that. Also, the cooking time was shorter for the brined beans.

[SamFem]

I saw another recipe that says 2 tsp salt for every qt of water used to soak and in this vid, reviewer used 2 tblsns for 2qts of water, so 1 tblsn for 1 qt sounds about right. I'm going to try it. I don't want to buy canned beans anymore, I would much rather start with the dried bean, ....but there's nothing worse than working several hours cooking on some beans and but have them end up hard or wrinkled and/or just not as good as the canned.

[SamFem]

All my recipes say NOT to soak in salt water. However I guess precision as to amount of salt that you soak it in might be the key. Hmmm so How much salt for say 2 cups of beans???

[seattwa]

I know not to add salt the bean until they are cooked because the skins will toughen. BUT, when you brine something you generally rinse it off before cooking. Maybe that's why it works (?).

[Soulman1282]

This is pretty weird since every recipe I've ever seen says NOT to salt the soaking water OR the cooking water. But to only season with salt after the beans are fully cooked, because the salt will make the bean skins TOUGH....which my experience has shown to be true. Pretty weird...

[lok0605]

here's a dumb idea.why noy stoor the beans when they are cooking so that they can all cook evenly.

[lok0605]

@aleiakay thats exactly what my mom does when she cooks beans

[aleiakay]

@wealthaid i think minimum cook time for pintos is 7 to 8 hours, the longer you cook them the softer the beans are and browner the water becomes depending on what you desire i think, i had recently asked my mom her recipe, she's been cooking pinto's for my dad for over 50 years, also take note she said that if you don't get enough water in them in the beginning it gets too dried out you have to add water, bring the water to a boil in another pot before adding to the beans, do not add cold to hot

[wealthaid]

It would have been nice to know how long you cooked them.