Soaking beans??!
Soaking beans??
I am trying to make some portuguese beans and i am soaking as the recipe calls for and have rinsed them off and sorted. They have been soaking in cold water for ten mins or so and the little white skin is peeling off most of the beans. I seem to have this problem when ever i cook pinto beans when I soak them...What am I doing wrong?? Do I have to soak them??? And are the white beans okay to use for this recipe? It says navy beans, or small white beans i couldnt find the navy beans so i used whit beans...
Additional Details2 weeks ago
I dotn have a problem soaking them just dont know why the peel or skin comes offf.....When i make pinto beans i find just throwing em in the pot with out soaking they come out fine and the skin intact.. just wonderingif im doing somtihng wrong or that how they do...i dont know
Answers:
2 weeks ago
I dotn have a problem soaking them just dont know why the peel or skin comes offf.....When i make pinto beans i find just throwing em in the pot with out soaking they come out fine and the skin intact.. just wonderingif im doing somtihng wrong or that how they do...i dont know
You're not doing anything wrong. Some bean varieties do that because the skin is thin and when the bean begins to swell from soaking, it breaks and begins to peel.
Soaking is good, the best is overnight. (If it's hot in the kitchen, the beans will soak well refrigerated to avoid fermentation that can occur overnight in warm weather.) It cuts cooking time down. You can cook beans directly but it will take longer if you don't soak unless you use a pressure cooker.
Be sure, no matter what, that you don't add salt until the beans are as soft as you want them to get. Salt will hinder the cooking and may even arrest the cooking and no matter how long you cook the beans, they will never get soft. That includes split peas too.
Most white beans, unless lima beans, have very close flavor. No worries.
You can also bring beans to a boil that have not been soaked, cover them, turn off the heat and let them sit for from 15 minutes to an hour. Then turn on heat and resume.
Lentils will cook fast not soaked, especially red lentils that are hulled and split. French lentils (the tiny ones) hold their shape nicely too in addition to cooking faster than most beans.
Source(s):
Cooking for 46 years, chef for 5.
You can use whatever type of bean you like. An alternative to soaking would be to rinse them and boil them in water for 15 minutes and let them then stand for 1 hour. It would be faster.
Soaking has 2 purposes. 1) lessens the cooking time since it softens the bean and 2) it helps them de-gas ( less pooting afterward or farting if you prefer).