Cooking beans

Jana had a problem with hard beans. I learned to cook beans from The Bean
Book by British vegetarian cook. Rose Elliot (Fontana, 1979). Here are a
few hints.

Hint #1 - Soaking

Rose advises that all pulses be washed and then soaked before cooking.
There are two ways of soaking.

1. The long cold soak (Soak for 4-8 hrs)
2. The short hot soak. Bring beans to the boil in a saucepan of water. Boil
for 2-3 minutes and soak for 45-60 minutes.

Hint #2 - Rinsing

Always rinse after soaking. This improves their digestibility.

Hint #3 - Cooking times

These vary for different types of beans. Here are the times for the most
common types of beans.

Black beans 1hr
Kidney beans 1 hr
Lima beans 45 minutes
Broad beans 1 1/2 hrs
Haricot beans 1 1/2 hrs
Red split lentils (soaked) 15-20 minutes
Soya beans 3-4 hrs

Hint #4

Do *not* add salt until the beans are cooked. This will mean they take
forever to become soft.

Hope this helps. If you need more help, feel free to email me privately. I
would also recommend Rose's book to anyone who would like to learn how to
cook beans easily.

For anyone who is a vegetarian for environmental reasons (I'm not), one
interesting fact is that beans can provide ten times more protein from a
piece of land than m**t. They are really cheap too, for student vegetarians
like me.