So I’m having a bowl of baked beans with some crunchy day-old skillet cornbread crumbled into it and oh man, is it delicious.
The thing is that these beans have taken a sum total of about 10 or 12 hours to cook! I’m using Anasazi beans this time instead of my normal plain pinto beans. What is it about these beans that is taking so long? Is it just these ones or do I need to set aside entire weekends for cooking beans in the future?
My recipe does NOT involve presoaking the beans (per Russ Parsons’ assertion that it doesn’t matter–and I haven’t found evidence to the contrary up until, possibly, this batch):
1 cup dried beans
1 onion, diced and sauteed
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
1 can diced tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
About 3 cups boiling water
Dump everything in a covered casserole, bake at 200 degrees for about 4 hours. Usually. This time the beans were still hard at the 6-hour mark and I had to leave to go to a concert. I put them away in the fridge, then heated them back up again the next day to boiling point, lowered the heat again to 200, baked for about 4 hours, tasted and found no difference in the texture, got impatient and turned the oven up to 350 for a few more hours. Finally they cooked.
What’s the deal with these beans? Has anyone else cooked with them who can weigh in?
The time it takes to cook beans is often determined by how old they are. Had you perhaps had the Anasazi beans in your pantry for a year or two and decided to use them up? It’s also possible they sat at the store for a while before you purchased them.
Pinto beans are higher volume items with a lot more turnover, so the dried beans will usually be ‘fresh’.
Good point about higher turnover for pinto beans. I just bought these a few days ago, but they were in a bulk bin and may have been there for years, who knows.
I know that anasazi beans are a very old variety, coming from the Anasazi (Ancient Ones) from the desert pueblos, so at first thought maybe they were drier than most beans, coming from an arid place.
A bit of google disproves that. According to that link (scroll down):
The “less gas-producing” property is because of less carbohydrates, and therefore, the supposed quicker cooking time. Other sites held true with this observation.
So, as others have said, you probably got some old beans (of a variety that is very old) My experience with too old beans is that, even if you presoak them, they’re Never quite right.
If you want to pursue it further, these folks seem to be all about the anasazi bean.
I’d try cooking the beans fully or nearly so before adding the onions and tomatoes. I believe that beans cook more slowly or less completely in an acidic environment.
I’ma hafta agree here. Takes WAY longer to cook otherwise, and sometimes they just don’t cook right. Exceptions: the smaller legumes. Black beans, I can cook unsoaked if pressed, and I never soak lentils.
Russ Parsons is a food writer–former food editor for the LA Times and author of How to Read a French Fry. He’s a kitchen scientist, similar to Alton Brown or Harold McGee in approach.
I’ve cooked beans many times before without soaking and they’ve always come out fine. Just this one time. I will have to go with the thought that maybe it’s the acid in the tomatoes (I do sometimes add them a bit later in the process) or the age of the beans.