How do Orca beans taste?
Growing food is great--but only if you and your family will eat it.
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| An "Orca" bean soaked in water and salt for a few hours (left) and a dry bean (right) |
I mean, beans pretty reliably taste like beans, but I decided to make sure that growing heaps of Orca beans would result in food we wanted on the table all winter.
The complication is, as I mentioned in an earlier post, that not all beans sold as "Orca" beans are actually Orca beans. Some are Calypso, some are Ying/Yang. Sigh.
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| I bought a 5-pound bag of "Orca" beans from Central Bean in Quincy WA so I could do a taste-test. |
I did the best I could. The beans I bought to eat are either Orca, or something very similar to Orca.
This was not a scientific test, by the way. There are thousands of ways to eat beans, with recipes from all over the world--that's one reason I want to grow them!
But I wanted to taste-test these in soup, because that's how we mostly eat them in my house.
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| Soaking the beans leached away some of the dark pigment which turned the soaking water blue. Slightly alarming. |
If you're new to my style of cooking, the "recipe" may seem a little vague. This isn't true. My soup recipes are completely vague.
Stick with me, it always ends up as food.
Step One, which I usually forget:
Soak the beans in salty tap water overnight before cooking.
The soaking causes more oligosaccharides (the carbohydrates in beans that are most difficult to digest and thus cause gas) to dissolve. Use about 5 cups of water to 1 cup of beans, or about 2-3 inches of water in the bowl above the beans, plus a generous handful of salt.
In the morning, dump out the salty water and rinse the beans.
If you don't have time (or you forgot) to soak the beans overnight, there is a workaround!
You can "speed soak" beans by boiling them for about 5 minutes in salty water. Then, dump out the salty water, rinse the beans, put them into a soup pot with at least twice as much water as beans, and proceed.
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| Make big things small and put them in water with (or without) a meat Now comes the fun part, which is where the vagueness begins: Add stuff. I had a ham shank in the fridge, which is a golden ingredient for bean soup. But you don't need ham. Got some leftover chicken? A chunk of beef? A bit of salmon? It's all good. Chop it into bite-sized pieces and toss into the pot with the beans and the water. If you prefer a vegetarian soup, that's fine too. Veggies: I had some very flaccid carrots, plus some onions and garlic left from last year's garden. I chopped them up, sauteed them in a little olive oil, and dumped the whole thing into the soup pot.
I remembered that I still have a few small butternut squashes from the garden on my storage shelf. And some corn from the garden still in the freezer. So I pitched those in as well. Season as you prefer. The smoked ham was a strong enough flavor that I only wanted a little bit of pepper and a bay leaf. |
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| We seasoned with black pepper and a bay leaf |
The result: a hearty soup perfect for a rainy evening.
The beans did not retain most of their speckles--they looked more like a black bean, but tasted creamier, more like a white bean. Everything mellowed together beautifully and was warm and comforting to eat on a rainy evening.
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| Nutritional data for "Orca" beans |
VAGUE RECIPE FOR BEAN SOUP
Dry beansWaterSaltVegetablesMeat (optional)
Soak the beans in lots of salty water, either overnight, or speed soak them. When the beans have expanded and softened a little, discard the salty water and rinse the beans.
Put the soaked beans into a soup pot with 3 inches or more of water over the top of them.
Chop the vegetables and (optional) meat, and toss them all in.
All the soup to simmer for at least two hours. If using a slow-cooker, the soup can bubble on high for 3 hours, or on low heat for 6 hours or more.
This soup is even better the next day.
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| Soaking the beans leached away some of the dark pigment which turned the soaking water blue. Slightly alarming. |
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