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Dips etc

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Re: Dips etc

Postby KeenCook2 » Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:04 pm

DEB wrote:Please not the lenght of time does depend on how old they are and you have socked then overnight.

:lol: :lol:

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Re: Dips etc

Postby MariaK » Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:44 pm

Cooking beans, chickpeas etc

Recently a Spanish chef insisted that while beans could be soaked & cooked in cold water, chickpeas must be soaked and cooked in hot water.

Haven't tried it yet as during the heat wave ( upto 40ºC) I avoided unnecessary cooking & relied on tins of chickpeas for hummus etc.

Soaking in bicarb
Worth doing if the beans are a bit ancient, but rinse thoroughly before cooking. Shouldn't alter the taste, Add salt about halfway through, not at the beginning.

Muhammara is one of my favourite dips . based on this recipe posted by Odette/AZCook on the old BBC board

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food ... mara-10982

I roast the peppers (3.4 red bell peppers depending on size)- If there are no pomegranate molasses add some lemon/lime juice and a dribble of M&S runny syrup or a pinch of brown sugar.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby scullion » Wed Aug 26, 2020 10:53 pm

MariaK wrote:Recently a Spanish chef insisted that while beans could be soaked & cooked in cold water, chickpeas must be soaked and cooked in hot water.


when we solar cook them we put them, dried, in cold water and put them in a lower tech solar cooker and leave them to get on with it for the rest of the day so ked in cold water, chickpeas must be soaked and cooked in hot water.
[/quote]

when we solar cook them we put them, dried, in cold water and put them in a lower tech solar cooker and leave them to get on with it for the rest of the day so they are rehydrated and cooked at the same time.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Renee » Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:14 pm

MariaK wrote:
Muhammara is one of my favourite dips . based on this recipe posted by Odette/AZCook on the old BBC board

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food ... mara-10982

I roast the peppers (3.4 red bell peppers depending on size)- If there are no pomegranate molasses add some lemon/lime juice and a dribble of M&S runny syrup or a pinch of brown sugar.


I am about to make the recipe posted by Odette tomorrow. I love it and am able to get pomegranate molasses luckily.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Stokey Sue » Thu Aug 27, 2020 4:53 pm

MariaK wrote:Recently a Spanish chef insisted that while beans could be soaked & cooked in cold water, chickpeas must be soaked and cooked in hot water

How odd - I've always followed the rule that for any dried pulse that needs soaking at all you either go for the short hot soakputting them into cold water , bringing to the boil, and then leaving aside for an hour or the long cold soak - lots of cold water for at least 8 hours, usually overnight. I've never found it really mattered mattered much though with more delicate beans like butter (lima) bean they might be less likely to shed their skins in that unappealing manner if gently cold soaked, brought to a delicate simmer, and cooked through

Like all these things where one camp is very prescriptive of one way and another camp goes contrariwise it probably doesn't make a blind bit of difference

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Re: Dips etc

Postby jeral » Thu Aug 27, 2020 6:24 pm

Different schools of thought might depend on the beans they are used to. I find that so-called cooked tinned chickpeas vary wildly in toughness and gather dried ones do too.

I cook even tinned chickpeas on a rolling boil for at least 30 mins sometimes 45 before they become soft enough to avoid unpleasantly gritty humous, even though they might be OK eaten al dente in a stir fry.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby karadekoolaid » Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:58 pm

I very rarely use tinned chickpeas, firstly because they´re way more expensive and secondly because I can never judge what the quality is like until I´ve opened the can. I soak the chickpeas overnight then put them on to cook while I making tea and reading the news first thing in the morning. Just water and a few bay leaves; no salt. Sometimes they cook in 45-50 minutes, other times they take 75 minutes and in extreme cases, up to 2 hours. There´s really no way to be sure that the chickpeas are "fresh" or whether they´re one or two years old. Jeral, you´re spot on there; and the same applies to beans. sometimes red kidney beans (or Mexican brown beans) cook in 40 minutes, other times they take ages.
I just wonder - has anyone ever seen FRESH chickpeas in the market? I haven´t.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby miss mouse » Thu Aug 27, 2020 8:19 pm

jeral wrote:I cook even tinned chickpeas on a rolling boil for at least 30 mins sometimes 45 before they become soft enough to avoid unpleasantly gritty humous, even though they might be OK eaten al dente in a stir fry.



I had never thought of that. I'll try it.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby ZeroCook » Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:45 am

.

I'm with Clive here on chickpeas. Soak overnight. Boil in plain water starting from cold for an hour after bringing to a simmer and they come out perfectly soft. Never had a prob. I think people get impatient and probably tend to undercook them - they need pretty much an hour, same as beans and other pulses, more if they've been stored a long time. Just keep testing for softness. Adding bicarb may help cook faster but destroys a huge amount of nutrients.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby KeenCook2 » Sat Aug 29, 2020 12:59 pm

ZeroCook wrote:.
Adding bicarb may help cook faster but destroys a huge amount of nutrients.
.


That's interesting, ZC.
Are canned chickpeas also low on nutrients? Or should they actually be fine?

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Aug 29, 2020 1:16 pm

I've always understood that baking soda /sodium bicarbonate added to green veg to preserve the colour damaged the vitamins but that it was OK in most other foods - but that's not science, it's just gleaned from magazines and recipes etc

I'll quote this from the Boston Globe
So we got in touch with an expert, Guy Crosby, who teaches at the Harvard School of Public Health, is science editor for America’s Test Kitchen, and coauthored 2012’s The Science of Good Cooking with the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. Turns out cooking food with baking soda (a.k.a. sodium bicarbonate) can indeed damage a number of nutrients, such as vitamin C, vitamin D, riboflavin, thiamin, and one essential amino acid. Yet it doesn’t hurt others, including vitamin A, vitamin B12, niacin, and folic acid.


Actual research on legumes/pulses suggests bicarbonate reduces the phytic acid and tannin content, and those stop you absorbing nutrients
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... of_legumes

So I doubt you'd suffer much from eating pulses soaked with bicarb, apart from the nasty soapiness

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Aug 29, 2020 3:17 pm

Your findings back up what I had always been told, Sue. Ok for pulses but not veg (and was why I was loathe to add it to sour gooseberries earlier in the year even though it did the trick.

Interesting question re seeing fresh chickpeas for sale. I've never seen them, I'm not even sure where they grow but presumably a Mediterranean climate considering the cuisine where we see them most.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Aug 29, 2020 5:48 pm

I looked it up
https://www.statista.com/statistics/722 ... worldwide/

Leading producers India (where they originate), Australia, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Turkey, Russian Federation, Pakistan, USA, Iran, Mexico in that order

I think I saw them growing in Myanmar (Burma), look like very scruffy fields of peas, but I don't think I saw fresh ones even there

The dry ones I buy here seem to be mainly Turkish, even those from the supermarkets when I look at the label but the canned ones don't admit to a country of origin

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Re: Dips etc

Postby ZeroCook » Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:35 am

.

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This study aims to check the effect of soaking and cooking on the anti-nutrient contents and nutritional quality of the legumes

Legumes are also under utilized because of enzymes inhibitors, proteins of lowquality due to their deficiency in sulfur containing amino acids, flatulence factors, phyticacid which reduces the bioavailability 8of divalent minerals, toxic factors such as tanninsand haemaglutinins. Previously, many attempts have been made to reduce the level ofthese antinutrients from legumes. Soaking in simple water and salt solution is a commonpractice to soften texture and hasten the cooking process (Silva et al.,1981).Soaking and cooking improve nutritional quality of legumes. Beside improvement in nutritionalquality most of valuable nutrients are lost during processing. Losses of minerals andvitamins have been found more significant as compare[d] to protein and other nutrients

Reading thru the study - it was about reducing phytic acid and tannin - anti nutrients - as pointed out but it still upholds a key 1981 study cited which is about loss of actual nutrients.

I take that to mean while that this study finds that various soaking and cooking methods including bicarb (with vinegar here) - reduce phytic acid and tannin which is desirable, it does destroy higher amounts of actual nutrients as does pressure cooking.

Good old fresh water soak and long freshwater boil seems to be the way. The bicarb thing seems to be about trying to save time by cooking legumes faster.

Have seen fresh chickpeas in Middle Eastern markets- they're a lot like fresh peas in slightly fuzzy pods and just as seasonal so appear for a very brief time. Very nice too.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Badger's Mate » Mon Aug 31, 2020 10:41 am

I appreciate that it might not be written in the first language of the authors, but it doesn't seem to be proof read, never mind peer-reviewed.

Maybe I've misunderstood, but the percentages don't seem to add up and I've never seen a pressure cooker that operates at 151 psi :shock:

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:22 am

I only linked to the paper because it was one of the very few I could find that specifically looked at the subject
One should seldom take a single scientific paper as evidence of anything much except hard work, what one is looking for is a body of evidence that adds up to something
In the end we mostly eat our reconstituted dried pulses with veg as part of a balanced diet, and the main contributions of the pulses are protein and fibre, which are quite hard to negate, though thiamin and riboflavin are possibly significant

And the place for baking soda, strangely enough is mainly in baking!

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Re: Dips etc

Postby scullion » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:38 am

i have always pressure cooked beans for 10 mins on full pressure from dry then turned off the gas and let them continue cooking and soaking in the closed pot.
it seemed a far better alternative, even if a small amount of nutrients were lost, than any chance of having the young eat the soaked but uncooked beans.
a friend (an adult) made herself very sick doing just that before finding out that red kidney beans and the like contained a toxin.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:44 am

Someone served undercooked red kidney beans to a large group of people - of the people who ate them (I didn’t) it was noticeable that the impact varied, the cook himself seemingly immune and surprised that others regarded his usual beans as undercooked, one person being quite ill

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Re: Dips etc

Postby Badger's Mate » Mon Aug 31, 2020 5:37 pm

I've always soaked dried pulses and cooked them in a pressure cooker. If I've got home grown ones they might take less soaking or cooking, but they always get a thorough boiling at the very least.

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Re: Dips etc

Postby ZeroCook » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:00 am

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Not that I can imagine anyone thinking that undercooked beans are in any way nice to eat, but minimum of 15 minutes boiled for presoaked beans and 30 minutes for unsoaked. Especially red kidney beans, natch and also lima beans. If boiled for an hour all toxins disappear. Yeah there's science.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... 83.tb14831.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... via%3Dihub

Anyway nuff of that stuff for moi. Just cook em a long time. Taste better too! :)

I really like black beans a lot - great flavour and they make really great dips and pastes. They have thick skins and can be cooked for ages to reduce the digestive gassiness effects. I cook beans in a ceramic slow cooker that does a low simmer - really good for someone like me who is prone to burning things like beans left to cook on the stove. I soak all beans overnight, drain, rinse, then cook in the slow cooker pot for a few hours.
Drain, saving cooking juice if needed. I much prefer cooking beans to buying tins and usually make enough to freeze as well.

Black Bean dip (also works well with white beans)

makes a bowlful.

Blitz to preferred consistency - coarser or smoother as liked:

6 cups/1500 ml cooked drained beans (3 tins, drained or 500g from dry)
2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tbs white vinegar or lime or lemon juice or to taste
1/2 cup/125 ml sour cream or plain/greek yoghurt
I jalapeño or green chile to taste, stemned, seeded, chopped
4 tbs finely chopped cilantro/coriander
1/2 tsp salt or to taste
optional: 1/2 tsp chipotle powder or hot smoked paprika to taste if wanted

Serve with tortilla chips or bready bits of choice.

It's easy to diy corn tortillas for diy chips if you can get masa harina. Much tastier than bought imo, with one or two exceptions.

Also good with a couple of roasted red peppers added into the mix.


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