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Brothy Beans

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Brothy beans is my go-to cooking method for making beans. I learned about it, like many people, in Carla Lalli Music’s video (where she learned about it from another chef). I’ve been making all of my beans this way for years now, here’s how I do it.

Ingredients

* 500g | 1lb dried beans

* 1 small piece of kombu

* 1 bay leaf

* 1 lemon, cut in half

* 1 onion or shallot, cut in half

* 1 head of garlic, cut in half across the equator

* 125ml | 1/2 cup olive oil

* Salt and pepper to taste

* Red wine vinegar or lemon juice to taste

Soak your beans overnight

Rinse your beans and remove any stones if present. Place the beans in a large bowl, add a small piece of kombu, and fill with clean, cold water to cover the beans by at least 2”. Depending on how old your beans are they may need more or less soaking time, minimum of 4 hours but overnight is best. The beans will double in size so make sure your bowl is large enough.

Cooking

Remove the kombu – do not cook the kombu, it will become bitter.

Pour the beans and bean soaking liquid into a large pot. Add more water to cover by at least 2 inches.

I repeat: remove the kombu before cooking! It’s the kind of bitterness you can’t treat, like a relationship too far gone to salvage.

Bring to a boil.

This will trigger some proteins in the beans to foam, similar to boiling meat for stock. Skim off the foam and reduce to a simmer. Once the beans stops foaming, add the other ingredients. If you add ingredients like olive oil or herbs before all the foam is gone you’ll just be scraping them away.Add:

* 1 tsp of of salt and pepper to taste

* A lemon cut in half

* An onion or shallot, cut in half

* A head of garlic, cut in half

* A bay leaf or two

* 1/2 cup of olive oil

* Optionally 2 tsp of dried herbs – thyme, oregano, or rosemary

* Optionally, if you have a carrot or celery kicking around you can add those too

Reduce to low, add a lid slightly ajar, and gently simmer on low for at least 2 hours, longer if you have time, until the beans are soft all the way through. Add more water if needed during the cooking time. Remove the vegetables. Adjust with salt, pepper, and acid.You can separate the beans from the broth and use them in any recipe that calls for that type of bean. You can use the broth as you would any broth. It will be rich and flavourful. Or you can eat them together as a soup – perfect with olive oil fried bread and some Parmesan.Beans keep well in the fridge for a 3–5 days. Beans can be frozen in their broth for a long time. Reheat gently.

Baked Beans

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If you like BBQ sauce, you’ll love home made baked beans. These are so delicious you’ll want them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is a great entry point for learning how good beans can be at home. These are Whipple beans from Rancho Gordo – most often baked beans are made with navy beans (which are white, because food is confusing). If you have a favourite home-made BBQ sauce recipe, that’s a great way to riff on the flavours.

Ingredients

* 2 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters

* A head of garlic, peeled and smashed

* 1/2 cup olive oil

* 1/2 cup molasses (or maple syrup or honey if you’re feeling fancy)

* 1/4 cup tomato paste

* 1 tbsp smoked paprika

* 1 or 2 bay leaves

* 1 tbsp mustard (I like grainy)

* 2 tbsp soy sauce

* 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

* 1 tbsp garlic powder

* 1/2 Tsp chili flake

* 2 tsp salt

* A lot of black pepper

Method

Soak your beans overnight, covered with 2” water, with a piece of kombu (seaweed, to remove the farts through the power of enzymes).Remove the kombu before cooking.Transfer the beans and soaking liquid to a large pot. Add more water so the beans are covered by at least 2”. If you missed the part about removing the kombu, remove it now. If you cook it it will become very bitter.Bring the beans to a boil and skim off the foam (it’s just protein). Reduce to a simmer, then add everything else. If you’ve ever made your own BBQ sauce you’ll recognize the profile, and you can tweak this to your tastes.Simmer for at least 3 hours, which can be done uncovered on the stove or in the oven at 275°F. The beans should soft and cooked all the way through, and the liquid very thick and sticky. If the liquid evaporates too quickly you can add more water.Taste the sauce and adjust for salt, heat, sweetness (add brown sugar if sour), and acidity (more ACV if dull/flat/sweet).Eat with toast, or make a full English, or just devour them out of the bowl like I did while writing these notes. They are addictive.

Hummus

I’ve tried what feels like every recipe for hummus. Everyone has their own way. In Kitchener we have a lot of great Middle Eastern restaurants, and everyone has their favourite hummus: Arabesque, for their tahini-forward, thick-but-silky smooth hummus. La Casbah, for their garlic and lemon-forward whipped hummus. Black Market Hummus, which is chickpea-forward and textured. Al Madina’s, which is lemony and deeply flavoured.

I don’t peel my chickpeas, it’s too much work and fiber is good for you. On Home Cooking, Samin Nosrat recommends to use a food processor, not a blender, and to process for a full 2 minutes to get silky smooth hummus – and I can tell you that it works. It’s what I do now. You can use a blender, the blender is easy, but the food processor is superior if you have one.

Cooking your own chickpeas means you can introduce so much more flavour into the hummus. You can also make a large batch of chickpeas at once, save some for salads, for crispy chickpeas, for shakshuka, or freeze them for later. Of course, you can use canned.

Here’s how I make my hummus. You can make your hummus however you like! Please share your hummus in the comments, as we should all be open minded to trying different kinds of hummus. One world, many hummus.

Ingredients:

* 2 cups of cooked chickpeas (cooked in the brothy bean method, or 1 can)

* 1/2 cup bean broth (approximately)

* 1/3 cup tahini

* 2 garlic cloves (this is garlic-forward, use 1 clove if you’re not a garlic person)

* 2 tbsp lemon juice

* 1 tsp salt

* 1/4 cup good olive oil (for serving)

* 1 tsp tomato powder (optional)

* 1 tsp sweet paprika (optional)

Method:

Add the chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon juice, and salt in the food processor and blend for 2 minutes. Check your taste and texture:

* If it’s too thick, add some bean broth

* If it’s too tahini-forward, add more lemon juice

* If it’s too lemony, add more tahini

* If the garlic is too much, you can add more chickpeas – or embrace the greatness of garlic

Transfer to a bowl and top with good olive oil. Sprinkle with tomato powder and paprika, if using. Optionally top with chopped parsley.

Soy Milk

One of the strangest bean myths is around soybeans and estrogen – it’s a very Western world argument, since half the human population has relied on soybeans for thousands of years without problems. I’m not worried about it.

My bigger concern with soy milk and tofu is the poor quality we have available at grocery stores. I started making my own soy milk and tofu last year because the quality difference is night and day. I detest soy milk from the store, the texture is somehow both thin and gluey, the taste is metallic. It has 40 calories because it’s not soy milk but chemically thickened water. This allows producers to increase their margin by marketing it as a low calorie health food, while only using 25% of  the soybeans you would at home.

Home-made soy milk is creamy, nutty, and delicious. Nutritionally, homemade soy milk is comparable to dairy milk – with 7g protein, 4g fat, 8g carbs (1g sugar)… but only if you make it.

And making soy milk is more tedious than oat, almond, or cashew milk – you have to cook it o make it safe to eat. It’s worth it. It is far more nutrient dense – the most protein you can get in a non-dairy milk, with a beautiful texture. It works great in cooking and baking.

There are three different methods of making soy milk, depending on what intensity of flavour you like. Depending on when you boil the soybeans the flavour will change dramatically.

Method 1: Soy milk with an intense flavour – ideal for tofu

Soak → Boil → Blend → Strain

Boiling whole beans creates a very intense grassy, beany flavour with a rich texture. This is great for making tofu, but not my favourite to drink a glass of soy milk.

Method 2: Soy milk with a balance of texture and flavour

Soak → Blend → Boil → Strain

Boiling puree creates the most luxurious, velvety soy milk with a sweet and intense flavour – it’s not very beany, but it you can tell it is soy milk.

Method 3: Neutral tasting, sweet milk – ideal as a dairy replacement

Soak → Blend → Strain → Boil

Boiling strained milk creates the sweetest, most neutral flavoured soy milk – you can barely tell it is made from beans. If you add a tiny bit of sugar and some vanilla you’d be fooled into thinking its milk.

Soy Milk Recipe

Ingredients

* 1/2 cup dried yellow soybeans

* 1 small piece kombu (optional)

* Water

To make 1L | 1 quart of soy milk:

* Rinse, then soak your soybeans at least 4 hours in cool, clean water that covers the beans by at least 2”. Optionally, add a piece of kombu.

* After soaking, remove the kombu, drain the soaking water, and rinse the beans – this helps minimize foaming and reduces bean flavour.

* Add your beans to a mixer or food processor with 2 cups of cold water. Blend into a puree.

* After blending, add 2 more cups of water and stir (don’t blend!). If you blend with all 4 cups of water the proteins in the soybeans will create a tremendous amount of foam.

* Pour the soy mixture through a nut milk bag or fine cheesecloth. The leftover pulp is called Okara, which can be used to add protein and fibre to other dishes like stir fry, or added to baking recipes like muffins. You can also compost it. It goes sour pretty quickly, so if you plan to use it, use it in 1–2 days.

* You must cook the soy milk for it to be safe to drink.

* Add the strained soy milk to a large pot, bring it to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Cook for at least 10 minutes. Allow to cool fully.

* Optionally, you can add 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

* Store soy milk in a glass carafe in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Notes:

Look for organic, non-GMO, Canadian grown yellow soybeans (in Canada). In the US, look for organic Laura soybeans which are a special variety of yellow soybeans that make excellent soy milk (not available in Canada).

With your own soy milk you can also make your own tofu. It’s very similar to making ricotta. The taste and texture is incomparable to the kind you get at the store but it does require a special tofu press and a seawater-based coagulant. If you plan to make your own tofu, try the other cooking methods which create a stronger, beanier flavour.

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