To soak or not to soak?

It’s possible to boil beans from dried until they are cooked, but it’ll take longer and they tend to break up to a mushy mess. Soaking them first will reduce the cooking time, and save on fuel costs. It’s a greener option for dried peas too, and even lentils, which cook fairly fast without soaking, will be quicker after a soak.

Simply tip the pulses into a pan and cover with water by about 5cm (add salt or bicarb if you like: see opposite), then leave overnight. If you don’t have time for that, just bring the pan straight to the boil. Boil for one minute, then cover and leave to soak for an hour, before continuing with the recipe.

To cook after soaking, top up the water to 5cm again, add a bay leaf or other herbs and spices, and bring to the boil. Boil for one minute – except for kidney beans or red beans, which must be boiled hard for at least 10 minutes, ideally in fresh water (set a timer) – then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for up to an hour, until tender. Top up the water if necessary, and shake the pan to check the beans aren’t sticking. Red lentils and split peas will need stirring as they collapse down, to stop them burning. Cool and store in the fridge for up to four days or freeze for up to six months.

The fastest and most economical way to cook pulses is in the pressure cooker, but again there’s a risk

Soaking will reduce the cooking time, and save on fuel costs. It’s a greener option

of overcooking them so they turn to mush. Catherine Phipps, author of Modern Pressure Cooking, published at the end of the month (Quadrille, £26), recommends soaking the beans first, then cooking for a shorter time, adding an acidic element to the pot: ‘vinegar, citrus, tomato purée will all help keep beans intact but beautifully creamy within. It is also important not to leave them in the cooker once the pressure has finished dropping as they will continue to cook in the still-hot cooking liquor.’

Jenny Chandler, in her encyclopaedic Pulse (Pavilion, £25), counsels starting the process in a pressure cooker, but finishing the cooking in a regular pan, to ensure they reach the perfect softness.

TRUE — Adding acid to bean cooking water stops them softening

TRUE — Adding sugar to bean cooking water stops them softening

FALSE — Adding salt to bean cooking water stops them softening

TRUE — Adding bicarbonate of soda to bean cooking water

helps them soften When it comes to softening beans, (a little) bicarb is good, sugar and acid are bad. A small amount of bicarb definitely speeds up cooking, but don’t add too much or it will make the beans taste soapy. Salt also seems to speed up cooking slightly, and it’s great for flavour. Because sugar and acid are bad news for cooking beans, when making beans in tomato sauce, don’t add tomatoes (which are sweet and sour) until the beans are well and truly soft. The upside is that the tomatoes should stop the beans collapsing further.

TRUE — Dried beans last for ever According to Josiah Meldrum, although Hodmedod’s aims to sell pulses in the year of harvest, they won’t go off. However ‘the starch transforms, getting more and more resistant starch in the beans as they age… so they take longer and longer to cook’. Catherine Phipps agrees, adding that when using a pressure cooker, ‘the older the beans, the harder it is to get them to cook through properly without them collapsing’.

TRUE — You should eat beans with grains Legumes, with the exception of soya beans, don’t contain all the amino acids to make a complete protein, but the shortfall can be made up with grains such as rice or corn. And you don’t need to eat them at the same meal: your body can combine the grain from breakfast with the bean salad at lunch.

TRUE — Undercooked kidney beans are toxic

A lectin called phytohaemagglutinin (PHA) is present in lots of beans, including green beans, and in dangerous levels in red beans such as kidney beans, but it is destroyed by proper cooking.

FALSE — Legumes are antinutritional

Legumes do contain

tannins, lectins, phytic acid and oligosaccharides, technically ‘anti-nutrients’ that affect the bioavailability and digestibility of some nutrients and minerals, but their other nutritional qualities will far outweigh any loss.

FALSE — You should throw away bean soaking water

and cooking water Some of the oligosaccharides in the beans will leach into the soaking and cooking water, so throwing it away may make the beans a bit less likely to cause wind – but you’ll lose flavour too. For most people it’s fine to cook the beans in the soaking water and use the cooking water in the finished dish. Don’t add soaking water to dishes without boiling though, especially if it is from red beans, because of the toxins.