Cheap, nutritious, versatile beans

Newsday (MCT) - Beans, beans they're good for your heart, your budget and your palate.

One of nature's most nutritious foods _ full of fiber and protein and virtually fat free _ they also are one of the market's cheapest. A pound of dried beans (easily enough to feed four people) costs less than $2; a 15-ounce can (the basis of a fine meal for two) runs about 75 cents. And because they are such a great and healthy value, pretty much every culture has come up with a delicious way to cook them.

Few culinary tasks are as easy as opening a can of beans, but cooking dried beans from scratch is a close second. Kitchen lore about cooking beans abounds _ soak, don't soak, salt, don't salt _ all of which makes it sound a lot more complicated than it is.

Sorting and rinsing

Before you cook them, go through the dried beans to make sure there are no pebbles or other foreign objects stowed away in the package. You also should remove any discolored or shriveled specimens. Rinse the beans by putting them in a bowl, covering them with cold water, then scooping them out with a slotted spoon.

Soaking

Soaking beans speeds up the cooking because the beans have already started to absorb water before you start to cook them. Traditionally, beans are either soaked in cold water overnight, or they are subjected to an equivalent "quick soak" in which they are placed in a pot with a few inches of cold water to cover, brought to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes and then taken off the heat to sit, covered, for an hour.

When I happen to think about beans a day in advance of cooking them, I might soak them overnight. But usually I don't soak them at all.

Salting

Another bit of traditional wisdom says you shouldn't salt beans while they cook because it will toughen the skins. I can find no scientific basis for this, and I have never found it to be true. What I have found to be true is that beans cooked in unsalted water taste like nothing. As they cook, beans triple in volume, and that increase is from the water they absorb. If that water has no taste, neither will the beans. I add about a tablespoon of kosher salt to the water in which I cook a pound of dried beans. (The presence of acid in the cooking water will toughen the beans, so add any lemon juice or tomatoes at the very end of cooking.)

Cooking

You can cook beans in just salted water, or you can get fancy and add some aromatic vegetables. Make sure whatever else you put in the water is large enough to retrieve when the beans are done _ the aromatics will be far too tasteless to serve. Quarter an onion through its root end, and put it in the bean pot along with a couple of cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of parsley or a rib of celery, a carrot, a few bay leaves and/or a ham hock, a chicken carcass, an expended rind of Parmesan.

Cover the beans with at least 2 inches of salted water, bring the whole works to a boil, then reduce the heat to a low simmer. Set the pot's cover askew, and then go do something else. Check on the beans every so often to make sure there is always some liquid covering them _ if the level dips below an inch, add water. Keep cooking until they are tender _ this can take from 1 to 4 hours, depending on the size of the beans and how old they are _ and if there's too much liquid left at that point, uncover the pot, turn up the heat and boil, stirring often so the beans at the bottom don't burn.

SERVING

Once the beans are cooked _ or you have succeeded in opening a can _ add them to a pan in which you've sauteed some onions, carrots and celery, and serve the mixture over rice or pasta. You could add some cut-up sausage as well. Or extend the mixture with some broth and make a soup, some of which you could puree in the blender or with an immersion blender. Or chill the beans and combine with some chopped onion and celery and herbs and maybe some canned tuna for a hearty salad.

DOABLE CASSOULET

The classic French bean stew features goose, duck confit, pork and pork sausages. I adapted the recipe for meats that could easily be found in the supermarket: chicken thighs, bacon and kielbasa.

2 pounds small white beans

2 large onions, divided

6 cloves garlic, divided

1 bunch parsley, divided

2 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

1 pound kielbasa

Ľ pound bacon slices, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 pounds chicken thighs, boned but skin attached

Olive oil

4 ribs celery, chopped

1 medium carrot, chopped

8 sprigs thyme

1 cup chopped canned tomatoes

Bread crumbs

1. Rinse and drain beans. Place in a large stockpot. Peel 1 onion and quarter it through the stem. Add to pot along with 4 cloves of garlic (peeled but not chopped), about 8 sprigs of parsley, bay leaves, 1 tablespoon salt and ˝ teaspoon pepper. Cover with water by 2 inches, bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, until beans are just starting to be tender. This can take anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes after pot comes to simmer. Add kielbasa, and cook until beans are tender, about 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in large Dutch oven, fry bacon over medium heat until it has rendered most of its fat and is lightly browned. Remove, drain and set aside, but keep pan over medium heat. Cut each chicken thigh in half, and season both sides with salt and pepper. Place pieces, skin side down, in rendered bacon fat. Leave thighs alone for at least 5 minutes. When skin side is nicely browned, flip and cook other side for 5 minutes. Remove from pan.

3. While thighs brown, chop remaining onion and about 8 sprigs of parsley.

4. If bacon fat has no burned bits, use it to saute vegetables. Otherwise, pour it out of pan, wipe pan clean and add olive oil to coat bottom of pan. To olive oil, add chopped onion and parsley, chopped celery, and carrot and thyme. Turn heat to medium, cover pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are limp, about 20 minutes. Mince 2 cloves of garlic, and add along with tomatoes. Stir and cook 5 minutes longer.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. When beans and kielbasa are cooked, remove kielbasa, cut into ˝-inch slices and reserve. Remove from beans the onion, garlic, parsley and bay leaves. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the beans into the vegetable pot. Mix well, and add enough bean-cooking liquid to make mixture a bit looser than you want the finished dish to be. Remove any thyme sprigs you can find. Taste for salt.

6. Into one large casserole dish, or a few smaller ones, spoon half the beans and spread out evenly. Nestle chicken thighs, sliced kielbasa and reserved bacon into beans. Top with remaining beans, and cover with foil. Cook until mixture begins to bubble, 45 minutes to 1˝ hours, depending on how warm mixture was before it went in. When it bubbles, remove foil, sprinkle with bread crumbs, and drizzle crumbs with oil. Bake 30 minutes longer, until top is nicely browned. Makes 8 to 12 servings.

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SLOW AND EASY CHICKPEAS

I adapted this from a soup recipe in Diane Kochilas' "The Glorious Foods of Greece" (Morrow, $40). This no-soaking, no-chopping method works for any legume and is particularly suited to chickpeas, split peas and smaller beans. You'll wind up with a fragrant and luxuriant pottage, that can be served over rice or pasta, or thinned or pureed for an elegant soup.

1 pound dried chickpeas, picked over and rinsed

Salt

1 very large onion, chopped

˝ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 bay leaves

1. Place chickpeas in a Dutch oven with 1 tablespoon salt, the onion, olive oil and bay leaves. Add enough water to cover everything by 2 inches.

2. Bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer very slowly, cover askew, until beans are very tender, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, depending on the size and age of the beans. If mixture gets too dry before beans are ready, add water by the cupful.

3. If, when the beans are ready, the mixture is too soupy, uncover pot, and turn up heat and boil, stirring frequently so the beans at the bottom of the pot don't burn. Taste for salt. Makes 8 servings.

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ALL-BEAN CHILI

This recipe, which uses canned beans, was adapted from a dried-bean recipe in Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" (Broadway, $40)

2 medium or one large onion, finely diced

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Salt

4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

2 teaspoons ground cumin

4 teaspoons sweet paprika

2 to 3 tablespoons ground red chile powder (not chili seasoning blend)

2 teaspoons dried oregano

2 cups canned chopped tomatoes

2 canned chipotles in adobo, with the sauce, minced

Ľ cup chopped cilantro

4 cans black, red kidney or other beans, rinsed and drained

Sour cream, lime zest and cilantro sprigs, for garnish

1. In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, saute onion in oil until translucent, about 8 minutes. Add a big pinch of salt, the garlic, cumin, paprika, ground chile powder and oregano.

2. Lower heat and cook until onions are soft, another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, the chipotles and cilantro, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the beans and enough water so chili is soupier than you want it to be, ˝ to 1 cup.

3. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, adding water if mixture dries out. Taste for salt. Ladle into bowls, and top each with sour cream, lime zest and/or cilantro. Makes 8 servings.

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PASTA E FAGIOLI

This recipe for pasta and beans could hardly be easier _ it's pretty much the doctored-up contents of two cans _ but it is delicious. Using good olive oil here really elevates the dish.

Extra-virgin olive oil

2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed

1 sprig fresh rosemary

Ľ cup chopped parsley

1 (15-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes

Salt and pepper

1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups cooked macaroni

Grated Parmesan, for garnish

1. Coat the bottom of a large saucepan with oil; don't stint. Add garlic, rosemary and half the parsley, and heat over medium until garlic just starts to color.

2. Add tomatoes, a good pinch of salt and a few grindings of pepper, and, with a potato masher, mash tomatoes while you bring mixture to a simmer.

3. Add beans and ˝ cup water. (If you have reserved pasta-cooking water, so much the better). Bring to a simmer, mashing some of the beans, then add 2 cups cooked pasta.

4. Simmer soup uncovered, if you'd like it a bit thicker, or covered, if the thickness is correct. After 5 or 10 minutes, turn off the heat, fish out rosemary stem, and add remaining chopped parsley.

5. Ladle into bowls and garnish each with a little olive oil and grated Parmesan. Makes 4 servings.

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BEAN THERE

If beans have a downside, it's that they are a leading cause of intestinal gas. Beans contain oligosaccharides, a complex sugar that is broken down by an enzyme that, unfortunately, human beings lack. Other sugars are broken down by enzymes in the small intestines; the constituent parts are then absorbed into the intestinal lining. But oligosaccharides make it all the way down to the large intestines, where bacteria break them down, imperfectly, into gas.

Much ink has been spilled on how to silence the musical fruit and halt any embarrassing or painful emissions. A popular remedy involves soaking the beans in water to which you've added some baking soda, then rinsing the beans and cooking them in fresh water. Critics of this method note that nutrients are lost along with the soaking water. They also say it doesn't work. Mexican cooks boil their beans with the herb epazote, which is said to reduce gas. I've also read that the longer beans are cooked, the more the offending sugars are destroyed.

The one remedy with near-universal acclaim is the commercial product Beano, which comes in tablet and liquid form and is in the antacid section of supermarkets and pharmacies.

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© 2009, Newsday.