Cooking beans: cooking liquid -> sauce

Cafe Society
1

Growing up, I ate black (turtle) beans cooked so that they were served in a thick, shiny sauce they made themselves. Unfortunately, I never learned how to make them that way. I know how to cook lovely, tender, delicious beans … but the cooking liquid, while friggin’ delicious, is always more of a thinner, broth-y texture. Even when I reduce it, it’s not … thick and shiny, I guess.

At dinner at a friend’s house the other day, I commented how her black beans were my idea of perfect: their cooking liquid had reduced to a velvety, shiny sauce, just like I like it. I asked her how she did it, and she responded that she basically boiled the hell out of them (high heat, rapid boil) for a little while.

This goes against what I’ve always been taught, that beans should be cooked gently, at a bare simmer. But then again, that’s never produced the results I want in this particular case. (Tuscan white bean stew is something else, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now.) So what say you, Dopers? Does anyone know how to get black beans in that thick, velvety, shiny sauce?

(It occurred to me after I’d left that maybe she used canned instead of dried, and I haven’t had a chance to ask her yet. Does that make a difference?)

2

I’m curious about this myself.

If your friend boiled them fast and hard, I am betting they were already mostly cooked in a can.

But maybe she meant she cooked them fast for a while, at the end or beginning…?

If not, surely someone else has ideas; that bean liquor rocks!

3

I use dried beans. Soak them over night and then cook them all day, slowly, taking care to replenish water. I usually add a ham hock or liquid smoke for added flavor, as well as rendered onions, garlic and bell peppers. The secret, according to my mom, is to cook them slowly. Always seems to work for me.

4

I always instead to simmer them slowly, but I lose track of the pot and they do end up boiling for at least some of their cooking time. And I get thick glossy potliquor from dried beans.

Give it a try, I say. What do you have to lose, other than $1 worth of beans and a hamhock?

5

Take about a cup of the cooked beans and mash them into a paste. Stir the mashed bean paste back into the cooking liquid. Thickens it up nicely.