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In Tuscany, beans are such an important ingredient that the people who live there are called mangiafagioli, or “bean eaters.” Considering the staggering variety of beans, peas, and lentils available worldwide and year-round, it’s a wonder we aren’t all bean enthusiasts. From dried lentils to frozen peas to canned kidney beans, legumes are a pantry heavyweight. They’re affordable, nutritious, and super delicious. So let’s get our bean on. (By delishdish)
Wait. Beans, peas, and lentils are related? Yep! Along with peanuts and soybeans, they’re all part of the legume family. A legume (pronounced lehg-YOOM) is any plant with seed pods that have two seams along their sides. Those seams split apart when the pod is ripe, yielding the seeds—or peas or beans—within.
The pods of some immature legumes—such as fresh green beans, sugar snap peas, and snow peas—are edible too. In England and France, people often call snow peas and sugar snap peas mange-tout, meaning “eat it all.” As legumes age, they lose moisture and become harder, which is one reason it’s difficult to say exactly how long dried beans will take to cook or how much they’ll plump when cooked.
Generally speaking, though, 1 cup dried will make between 2 and 3 cups cooked (enough for at least four servings).
Why They’re Good for You ?
Legumes are loaded with fiber and complex carbohydrates. That means they take a while to digest, which helps with everything from moderating blood-sugar levels and lowering LDL cholesterol to improving colon health.
They’re also one of the few plant-based foods that approaches meat when it comes to protein and iron content, making them ideal meal-boosters for vegetarians, vegans, and folks on limited-meat diets.
A half cup of cooked black beans contains about a quarter of the protein of a 4-ounce steak (but with less than half the calories) and more iron than 4 ounces of cooked chicken breast.
Eating cooked beans with tomatoes, bell peppers, citrus juice, or other sources of vitamin C boosts the amount of iron your body can extract from them even more. (Yay, black bean salsa!) Legumes also contain good amounts of folate, vitamin B1, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc, and phosphorus—nutrients most of us don’t get enough of.
LITTLE LEGUMES:
LENTILS & THE LIKE
More round than oblong, the smallest legumes look like tiny globes, half-spheres, or discs.
Because they’re so little, they cook fast and don’t require soaking. Just simmer them in salted water until al dente, 15 to 40 minutes (depending on type), and drain. Add butter and a little parsley, and you have a simple side dish;
or cook a few minutes longer, until they collapse, and you have soup!
You can toss cooked lentils with your favorite veggies, some cooked rice, and a sprinkling of Italian herbs as a last-minute dinner.
For a quick party dip, purée them with sautéed onions, garlic, and curry powder, and serve with pita chips.
Types to try:
• Lentils: available whole, split, and in many colors; also called “dal” in Indian cuisine. Split red lentils are actually yellow-and-tan lentils that have been hulled to reveal their orange-red interiors; they’re mild and almost sweet. Olive green French Le Puy lentils are considered by some the crème de la crème of lentils: They have a deep, earthy flavor well suited to hearty winter soups. Tiny black Beluga lentils retain a firmer texture when cooked and are delicious in salads.
• Split peas: yellow or green, with a robust, earthy flavor; famously used in soup.
• Mung beans: green (or yellow or black) with a little white sprout; milder than split peas; available whole, split, and sprouted. The split ones cook even faster. Look for sprouted mung beans or mungbean sprouts (like alfalfa sprouts) in the produce section.
BIG GUNS: DRIED & CANNED BEANS
Dried beans keep for years when stored in airtight containers at cool room temperature, and they cost up to 50% less than canned beans. Though they need soaking, preparing them is a mostly handsoff affair. (See “How to Cook Dried Beans” at right.) Freshly cooked dried beans have a creamier texture
and more-nuanced flavor than canned, and you can control exactly how much salt and seasonings go into them. Most dried beans also are available already cooked and canned. Either type works as a main ingredient in soups, chilies, and casseroles. You can tuck them in salsas and burrito fillings, and you can purée or mash them for dips, creamy soups, or healthier-than
cream thickeners. If you don’t have the exact bean called for in a recipe, you usually can substitute another of the same color. Types to try:
BLACK AND BROWN BEANS
• Black/turtle beans: popular in Cuban cooking and for bean salads.
• Swedish brown beans: small, slightly sweet. Swedes use them to make their own version of Boston baked beans.
RED AND PINK BEANS
• Red kidney beans: large, redskinned, curved; popular for chili.
• Pink/chili beans: smaller and paler than kidney beans.
• Pinto beans: oval; red-spotted tan when dried, pink when cooked; popular for chili and baked beans.
• Adzuki beans: tiny, reddishbrown, with a white sprout; in Asia, often cooked with sugar for desserts.
WHITE BEANS
• Cannellini/white kidney beans: large, oblong, thin-skinned, with a creamy texture; good in white chilies, salads, and Tuscan soups.
• Cranberry/borlotti beans: white or beige with maroon
spots when fresh or dried. They sometimes look more pink or tan (like pintos) when cooked, but they taste more like white beans.
• Great Northern beans: medium, with firmer flesh and a more neutral flavor than cannellini.
• Navy beans: small, oval; popular for baked beans and soups.
• Chickpeas/garbanzo beans/ ceci beans: hazelnut-shaped; key to hummus and popular in salads, thanks to their slightly nutty flavor.
PALE GREEN BEANS
• Fava/broad beans: large and flat; common in puréed Middle Eastern soups and dips. Fresh favas need to be shelled, blanched,
and peeled before cooking. Dried favas need soaking and cooking to remove the hard, white outer peel.
• Lima/butter beans: large, flat; generally called lima when fresh and butter when canned/dried.
• Flageolets: small green French kidney beans; delicate, delicious.
MULTI-COLOR BEANS
• Black-eyed peas/cowpeas/ field peas/lady peas: small, pale green or white, with a dark “eye.” Southerners simmer them with ham hock and serve with pepper vinegar.
• Scarlet runner beans: big, flat, meaty beans speckled red, purple, or brown. When young, they can also be eaten fresh, pod and all.
IN THE POD:
FRESH & FROZEN
Fresh young beans and peas with edible pods can be eaten raw, steamed, or simmered in water a few minutes—just until crisptender—or added to a stir-fry during the last few minutes of cooking.
While some are available fresh only in summer, greenhouses and the global veggie market extend the season for many to nearly year-round.
Most are also available frozen; because they are briefly cooked before freezing, they just need to be thawed and warmed. Bonus: They’re every bit as nutritious as fresh.
Types to try:
• Green/string/garden/pole beans: the kind you trim and snap into segments. Early varieties had tough strings along the seams—a pain to remove—but most now are stringless. The pods get bigger and tougher the longer they’re on the vine. To make them less tough, older beans often are frenched
(cut into thin strips with the outermost strips removed).
Some varieties:
• Haricots verts: French for “green beans”; tender, small, super-slender green beans.
• Purple green beans: like green beans but with purple outsides. They’re green inside, and some turn green all over when cooked!
•Wax beans: like green beans, but pale yellow or white all the way through.
• Yard-long or Chinese long beans: incredibly long, as the name suggests, and available at Asian and farmers markets. They taste like regular green beans; just trim into more manageable lengths.
• Green/sweet/garden peas: sweet, plump, full-sized peas removed from their pods.
• Snow peas: flat, crunchy edible pods with teeny-tiny peas and sweet flavor.
• Sugar snap peas: like snow peas but with more rounded pods,
bigger peas, and a sweeter flavor.
• Edamame/soybeans: oblong, pale green, nutty; usually sold frozen, both shelled and in the pod. Although the pods are not edible, you can steam edamame in their pods, then scrape the beans out with your teeth.
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