Black Bean Soup

[Vinca]

I've never made black bean soup with anything other than canned beans, but I want to try it from scratch with dried beans. What proportion of dried beans to water do you use and about how long does it take for them to cook? Thanks for any help!

[yellerpup]

1. Black bean soup is so good for you!

Here is a recipe from epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/reviews/Black-Bean-Soup-231174

Read the reviews of the soup, too, so you can see how others have "customized" it to their own taste. Let us know how it turns out! :hi:

[Vinca]

2. Thanks! I'm happy to see cilantro in the recipe - I've got a beautiful patch of it.

[yellerpup]

3. I'm jealous!

We are in an apartment with no outdoor space. My ideal is to have a container garden on a nice patio or terrace some day. Cilantro is a favorite flavor in our house, too. Enjoy! :hi:

[Warpy]

5. I grew leaf lettuce in window boxes

in a fourth floor walkup on Beacon Hill. You can satisfy your inner farmer even under those conditions.

As for the dried black beans, just soak them overnight and rinse them the next morning before you cook them. That gets rid of some of the polysaccharides you can't digest but which the bugs in your gut use to make you jet propelled.

If you can get your hands on some epazote, cook the beans with garlic and that. It stinks out loud, but it does truly magical things to black beans.

[yellerpup]

7. I used to find epazote in Riverside Park (NYC)

in the Washington Hgts. area and it does give beans that authentic Mexican flavor. I buy it dried now in the Latin grocery about 6 miles away, but the fresh is preferable, imo. Our apartment building doesn't allow window boxes, or satellite dishes, or superintendents with an IQ higher than 31. So it's the polysaccharides is it? Jet propelled! :rofl:

[Vinca]

8. Soaking . . . a very good thing to remember.

There's nothing quite so miserable as those polywhatsits causing havoc in the gut. Is an epazote a pepper?

[Warpy]

9. No, it's a herb frequently found in Mexican cuisine

The fresh herb stinks, with overtones of gasoline. It's truly awful, but stick a sprig of it into a pot of beans and true magic happens. The Mexicans claim that it also prevents flatulence, but I find discarding the soaking water does a better job.

[Vinca]

10. I'll have to see if they have it at the local natural foods store.

Sounds like an interesting herb.

[MajorChode]

4. The answer depends on what method you use to cook them

Roughly you're going to use 6-8 cups of water per every lb of beans, but you really don't want to go by volume. You want to go by how much water is covering your beans.

I like to use the overnight soaking method for most legumes. After washing the beans and removing any rocks, soak them overnight by adding enough water to cover them by 3". When you are ready to cook them, drain the water and refill with fresh water to about 1" above the beans. Turn the heat on high until they come to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer. You can always add more boiling water later if the beans soak up more water than you thought. It's more difficult to take water away.

There's also the quick soak method. You simply follow the first few steps for a soak, but instead of soaking overnight you bring the water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, you turn off the heat, cover the pan, and let them sit for 1-2 hours. Then drain and cook as before. Using this method they may soak up more water during the cooking phase.

The cooking time depends on your soaking method. It could be anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 3 hours for black beans. Some legumes take up to 4 hours, and some can be done in an hour. Basically you just stir every 30 minutes or so and check for doneness periodically. The beans are done when you bite into them and they are tender all the way through. If I'm making bean soup, I like to take about 1/4th of the beans out about 45 minutes before they are done, mash them with a potato masher, and put them back in the pot.

[EFerrari]

6. It's funny because I've never measured the liquid (about half stock and half water).

I use enough to cover the beans and about another couple of inches in the pot for the cooking. Unless you use gallons, it's hard to make it watery because you can always cook some off and you can thicken the soup by taking half of cup of cooked beans, puree them, and throw them back in.

I usually grind up cumin, coriander and thyme together (about 1t each) and throw that in, too. It adds a nice depth.