Why beans are bitter after cooking. Why beans are bitter
Probably everyone has their own secrets of cooking beans, as well as prejudices about how it should and should not be cooked. What are your secrets? What do you believe?
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 good for salads and so-called. filling stations, i.e. "non-bean" soups, in which bean broth is optional and beans generally play 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 "flesh", slightly salted through. The liquid is drained from it and discarded. 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 that 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.
Canned beans are very convenient to wash and strain directly in their own jar in this way
- at one end of the jar, make several punctures with a bottle opener
- turn the jar over the sink with holes down and open the jar 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 dry bean simmering and have suggested some very interesting methods of simmering them. I will talk about them today.
In all the methods listed below, we are talking about average beans: not just from the garden, i.e. dry, but very, very "fresh" beans, which are cooked very quickly without any tricks and jumps - they are simply poured with water and boiled, and not about very old dry beans, which are a hundred years old at lunch, lain for years on store shelves and a few more years in your home, and which requires very long cooking to boil to a tender state.
Method 1 Take dry beans, add water and cook until tender suitable only for very fresh beans, the beans of this year's harvest, which are at most a month or two old. In the tropics, beans are harvested a couple of times a year, and beans on sale are almost always very tender and easily boiled 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 soft even after several hours of cooking, they remain stone.
You can cook beans with or without salt - as you like. It is a myth that cooking with salt makes the beans tough or prevents them from "boiling" is a myth. 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 2r less salt (to get the same taste in beans) than when beans are salted at the end of cooking or when ready. I cook without salt only if I need a very rich and rich bean broth for stew-watering, bean soup-puree and similar dishes.
Beans can also be boiled or stewed with tomatoes, tomato puree. The fact that cooking in an acidified environment prevents the beans from being boiled is also a myth. In order for the acid to prevent the beans from being boiled, it must be VERY much, more than usual in edible bean dishes.
Any other beans cooked in this way will come out with a rough 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 boil.
You can cook in the water in which the beans were soaked, or you can drain that water and fill it with fresh water (so that the stomach does not swell from the beans so much) - as you like.
This method, oddly enough, does not reduce the cooking time of the beans a little and does not make the skins softer or the middle more 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 turn sour in the heat in the kitchen, and soak for no longer than a day even in the refrigerator, otherwise they will become 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'm making thick bean soups (like Indian dal) that are eaten over rice. those. So. Photo from here
For them soaked beans with sweet pepper cut into very large pieces, then boil the beans with it until soft. Then the pieces of boiled peppers are thrown away, and the soup-gravy is seasoned (with spices, spices, browned vegetables, etc.) and boiled until tender.
Approximately the same is cooked and served on dal rice - an Indian bean soup-watering. Photo from here
Method 3 Salting beans for several hours. In this method, a 1.2% "brine" is prepared (per liter of water 12g, 2.tsp without top, fine salt), beans are poured into it (per 1 stack 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 boil, preferably with a little salt, again (or a piece of bacon, corned beef, etc. and spices)!
Exceptionally creamy beans are obtained, with a delicate skin and a core that is completely silky to the bite. They cook faster than usual and remain intact, i.e. not inferior in quality to canned beans, only tastier. But it is necessary to cook, of course, on low heat, not to allow a very rapid boil. Very whole they are obtained 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 water from the soaked beans if you then again salt the water in which the beans will be boiled?
The answer is this. The secret of the hard skin and grainy bean center is that the skin contains calcium and magnesium salts. In this sense, it is similar to the shell of a chicken egg, which, no matter how boiled, cannot be made 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
The beans swell well, salt through and become elastic and tender. And calcium and magnesia migrate into the brine, which makes it "hard": if it is boiled, then after cooling, films and flakes of hard "salt" will settle on the bottom and walls of the dishes, as when boiling any hard water. And in hard water, as you know, it’s generally bad that it boils and boils softly. You can't even make tea with hard water! Therefore, the water that has become hard 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 leaf of sea kale. This is the most interesting method of cooking beans. Firstly, the beans do not need to be soaked, and secondly, the strongest and richest taste and aroma of beans is obtained both from the beans themselves and from the broth / bean broth. But, of course, in this case, you need to have dried seaweed leaves on hand - Japanese kelp, which is exported from Japan and sold under the name kombu.
The beans are as silky-soft inside and out as when soaked with salt, and cook just as quickly as if they had been soaked. And at the same time, the stomach from gas also does not swell! In this sense, a leaf of dried seaweed in a pot with boiled beans works wonders.
For a pound of beans (450-500g, 2 stacks of dry beans) take 4 liters of water 1 tbsp. top of salt and a piece of 10x10cm (or 20x5cm, etc.) dry seaweed. cook until the beans are ready, i.e. try on the tooth, because fresh, regular and very old beans are boiled for different times.
After boiling, sea kale is taken out and thrown away (although it is edible!), and the rest, both broth and 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 Recipe Testing Center (January / February 2012 issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine) concluded that there is no particular need to soak with or without kombu. Seaweed will do its job anyway case.
Interesting, isn't it?
Next time I will tell and show 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 it is like multicooker sell!). It turns out that a rice cooker, if it is the right size for your quantities of beans, is the best way to cook both beans and dishes from them, simply because in a rice cooker the beans will never burn or stick to the bottom (rice cooker turns off when he notices that the water has evaporated). Oh, how many times I have burnt beans in a pressure cooker - do not count! Well, you don’t need to stir, and the beans turn out to be just as tender and whole (if you need one) as when languishing in the oven, but without the expense of electricity, wood or gas as in the oven.
How do you cook beans? And in what dish? share your secrets please.
I cooked red beans for 2 hours, it turned out garbage. how to cook it right? and got the best answer
Answer from Oksana[guru]
in this case, it is important to know: How to soak beans
Soaking beans in water before boiling is useful for two reasons: This process softens the beans and returns moisture to them, which reduces the cooking time.
When soaked in water, oligosaccharides (sugars that are not digested in the human body) dissolve, 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 above the soaked beans. The beans will triple in size when soaking, so you will need a large pot. Soaking is best overnight or at least 8 hours. If you soak the beans too long, they can ferment. If there is not enough time, you can use the quick soaking method. Boil the beans for 3 minutes this day. Remove from heat, cover with a lid and set aside for 1 hour. Then drain the water in which the beans were soaked, pour in fresh water and cook until tender.
Beans and lentils should be sorted out before cooking, removing shriveled beans, pebbles and twigs, and then washed in cold running water. Canned beans should also be washed, then 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 hard-to-cook legumes. But green beans, that is, unripe beans, cook quickly and well. They cook longer than others - American large, white flageole, Ukrainian white (ordinary). Slightly faster than their predecessors: Bulgarian dwarf white beans, Ukrainian variegated, Mexican red and Cuban black beans.
Beans should be boiled in cold water so that the water barely covers its top, on a 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 dishes after they are fully cooked.
In the same way, beans are prepared separately for vegetable cereals and side dishes, mixing it with other vegetables already in a ready-made, boiled form.
Salted beans only after its final readiness and even after the complete preparation of the bean dish. So, for example, bean purees are salted only after beans have been pureed, and not after they have been cooked.
To enhance the flavor 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 well perceives oil - vegetable and butter.
+++ Beans
Red beans
Red beans (kidni, kidney beans) are shaped like kidneys. It goes well with spicy tomato sauces, onions, garlic and rosemary. Kidni is one of the main ingredients in many Creole and Mexican dishes, in particular chili con carne. But this type of bean 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]
Hello! 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 right?
Answer from Liana Baeva[guru]
No need to soak, just simmer over low heat - one hour is enough.
Answer from Andrey Suvorov[guru]
Pour in water, you can overnight, for 2-3 hours, add a pinch of soda when 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 out the water in which it was soaked and pour in fresh water, cook until tender for 1.5 hours.
Answer from Irina Pazina[guru]
When cooking beans (as well as peas), add a little soda to the water and do not salt until the end of cooking. With this method, the beans cook much faster.
Answer from Yoovushka[guru]
You have to soak the beans overnight. And when you cook, there is such a nuance., and an important one is to cook until half cooked, and then DRAIN all this water! Pour boiling water over and cook on new water, salt, pepper, herbs. . The fact is that if you do not drain the water, THE BEANS ARE VERY BITTER!
Answer from Fantasia[guru]
it had to be soaked overnight and then boil the soup as usual
Answer from Yovetlan-Ka![guru]
It's okay ... Moscow was not built right away either !! ! Just when the beans boil, you need to drain the water from it and fill it with cold water, and so on several times until it becomes ready !! ! Good luck to you!
Answer from Di[guru]
nado bilo sna4ala zamo4it,gdeto na noch,a potom varit
Answer from urandot*[guru]
And what happened? Two hours for red beans is not even enough)
Beans are a member of the legume family, the benefits of which have been heard by almost everyone. Tasty, nutritious, with a set of vitamins and microelements "in full", standing in second place in terms of the number of amino acids after meat, the culture seems to be "destiny itself" for any table. However, those who want to cook it often face the problem of the bitterness of the beans. Therefore, before looking for recipes with beans, you should find 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 for the intestines. Added to this is the effect of oligosaccharides - special sugars that the human body does not 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 danger. The green, freshly ripened pods of the plant are the most poisonous.
Raw beans of any kind should not be consumed. If you forgot and felt bitter - remember why the plant is bitter! Its poisonousness in fresh form is undeniable.
But not everything, it turns out, is so 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 cook the beans themselves correctly, so as not to wonder 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 up there already boiled, and extra work will not be needed to get rid of bitterness. It is enough to drain the liquid from the jar, rinse and lightly dry the beans. Great for salads and those dishes in which these beans are not the main ingredient.
For every bean lover who wants to get a complete “vitamin set” for himself, it is important to know the basic ways of cooking beans in order to eliminate their bitterness.
Method 1. Pour dry beans with water and cook until tender
Only very fresh beans are used, no more than two months have passed since the harvest.
In tropical countries, where beans are harvested twice a year, the question of why it is bitter is not worth it at all. Beans are almost always tender and easily boiled. Another question is what year of harvest they will send for export. Old "fruits" can be bitter and serious.
You can also cook crops from your own garden, but without taking too long after harvest.
Method 2. Soak in water for a long time, then boil
- Long soaking for 12 hours. Water is replaced with fresh water at least three times to actively remove bitterness.
- After 50 minutes of boiling, the water is drained and a new one is poured.
- Boil again for the same time and drain.
- In the third water, boil 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 right away with tomatoes or tomato paste. Their acidity does not in the least prevent beans from getting rid of bitterness and becoming edible.
Quick soak and cook:
- Washed selected beans fall asleep in a container for cooking.
- Pour three glasses of water to 1 with beans.
- After waiting for a boil over low heat, the “five-minute” is cooked at the maximum.
- Without cooking, to get rid of bitterness, leave in the broth for 3 hours.
- Pour it out, pour water 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 it is done at the end of the process or after being ready. Salting soups of different recipes during cooking is not recommended.
Method 3. Use temporary salting of beans
In this method, bitter beans are converted into edible ones with the help of a saline solution.
“At the exit”, beige beans are obtained without bitterness, delicate taste. At the same time, their integrity is violated very rarely.
Cooking is carried out on a small fire. 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 there will be no memories that the beans were previously bitter.
Ingredients for 4 liters of water: 2 cups dried beans, 1 large spoonful of salt and a piece of dried seaweed (10 by 10 cm, 20 by 5 or other sizes).
Cook until done. 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 throw out the cabbage, and use the rest for cooking.
When cooked in any way, the cooked beans begin to sink to the bottom.
Cooking Tips
- Take large dishes. Otherwise, beans swollen in 2-3 sizes will not enter.
- If there is no time to change the water often, you can add a soda solution to the soaking water to wash out the bitterness: for every 2.5 cups of water, a quarter of a small spoon. Then rinse with a flowing stream and lower for a couple of minutes in a solution of soda doubled in concentration. Rinse.
- The usual cooking of beans without soaking takes almost 4 hours, a violation of the integrity of the beans is possible.
- So that it does not acquire a dark shade - cook in a saucepan without a lid.
- Top up with water as it boils.
For soup, cook first in a separate container until half cooked, then in a common broth.
3 ways to check the readiness of beans:
- Pull out 3 pieces, try. If completely soft - pull out. The first "tasting" after 40 minutes from the start of brewing in the last water.
- Pull out 1 piece, blow. If the skin is broken, take it out.
- Mash the harvested beans. If it works out, there is readiness.
Average cooking time for beans:
- Red: 50 minutes - 1 hour, soaking from 8 hours. The slow cooker cooks for half an hour longer.
- White: 10-15 minutes less, with soaking from 8 hours. Without soaking, at least two hours are enough. In a multicooker on the “quenching” mode, it ripens in one hour.
If the beans are bitter after cooking
Why does it happen that the beans remain bitter even after cooking? There may be three reasons for this:
- Beans are grown incorrectly, therefore they contain a large amount of harmful substances.
- It was collected too early and processed incorrectly.
- The "fruits" are old and not in proper storage conditions.
In this case, the option to eliminate bitterness simply does not exist. Dangerous food should not be eaten.
Boiled beans are great as a side dish for meat and fish. It can be served as a separate dish or in combination with other raw vegetables. In any case, beans have a good taste and perfectly satisfy hunger. Beans are also an excellent source of copper, zinc, potassium and phosphorus.
Raw beans should not be eaten. It must be cooked: stewed or boiled. Raw beans contain toxic substances that are destroyed during cooking. Therefore, you should not eat raw pods and the beans themselves. Now we will tell you more about how to cook beans.
Beans should be soaked in water before cooking. Pre-soaking beans in water will not only speed up their cooking. Beans contain oligosaccharides that are not absorbed by the body. It is oligosaccharides that cause gas formation in the body. But during soaking, they dissolve, and the digestion process will not be very complicated.
Do not forget that the beans are soaked for 6-10 hours. It is undesirable to leave beans in water for more than 10 hours, as the fermentation process may begin. By the way, it is advisable to change the water in which the beans are soaked every 3.5 hours. Beans increase in size during soaking, so the water level should be 5 cm higher than the beans themselves. Never boil beans in the water in which they were soaked.
If for some reason you forgot to soak the beans, you can use the following method. Boil the beans for 3 minutes and remove the pan from the heat. Leave the beans for an hour in the water in which they were boiled. During this time, the beans will steam out and become suitable for further processing.
It is worth talking separately about the question of how much to cook beans? If the beans are not soaked overnight, then they should be boiled for 2-4 hours. It all depends on the size of the beans. So, large beans cook longer than small ones. White beans also boil very quickly. Red beans take a long time to cook, so they will need to be soaked anyway. But white beans can not be soaked.
Determine readiness easily. Western restaurants use the so-called "three system". To find out if the beans are ready, three beans are taken out of the pan. All three beans are tasted. If they are soft, then the beans are ready. If one of them is not cooked, it is worth continuing to cook the beans. Next time you also need to try three beans. This way you will know for sure that your beans are ready.
There are also a few tricks on how to cook beans. In order for the beans to be very tasty, they should be cooked properly. Therefore, as soon as the beans boil, drain the water and pour cold water. In addition, a little vegetable oil can be added to the beans during cooking. And do not forget that the beans should not be stirred with a spoon while they are cooking.
There is another way to cook beans. For its rapid preparation, a constant temperature difference is used. Bring the beans to a boil and add half a glass of cold water to it. Also during cooking, cold water is added 3-4 more times. Remember that beans should be cooked over low heat.
Do not forget that the beans are cooked without salt. Beans can be salted only at the end of cooking or after it is fully cooked. Very often during cooking, the beans change color and darken. To avoid this, beans should be cooked in an open container.
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