Beans play an important part in barbecue cuisine. Hard to find a pit stop that doesn't serve some sort of beans.
Some of my recipes call for canned beans because they are quick and easy. Drain, rinse, and they are ready to eat. But many people prefer dried beans. Dried beans are much cheaper and taste slightly better. They just take a bit more effort and a lot more time. As Steve Santo of the highly regarded bean grower Rancho Gordo likes to say "The big advantage of dried beans is the liquid they make. Canned beans need to be washed, whereas real beans come with free soup!" If you wish to use dried beans, it's pretty easy.
Dump the dried beans on the counter and make sure there are no pebbles or other foreign matter in them. Give them a quick rinse in cold water. In a bowl, cover the beans with three times their volume of water, and soak at least 6 hours. You can soak up to 12 hours if you wish. The longer dried beans soak, the less they need to cook. Beans soaked for 6 hours may need to cook 3-4 hours. Beans soaked for 12 hours may be done in 2 hours or so. If you don't have time to soak beans, you can cook with dried beans, they'll just take longer to get tender, perhaps 5-6 hours depending on the type and size of the bean.
Some folks think that you should discard the soaking water to reduce flatulence, but I have read reliable sources saying that this doesn't work, and that throwing out the liquid wastes nutrients. Santo says we should use the liquid, and that's good enough for me.
After the beans have been added to the recipe, boil for about 5 minutes, cut back on the heat, and let the beans simmer for about 2 hours or until they get soft enough to pierce easily with a fork. Don't boil beans for more than a few minutes or else they will turn to mush. Simmer them.
Dried beans cook even faster in a pressure cooker. Rinse, soak, and cook 20 minutes in the pressure cooker. Then open the lid and cook another 20 minutes or more until the beans are done.
Approximate equivalents
Here are some useful measurements. They can vary significantly depending on the type of beans, the size of the beans, or the brand of the canner.
Dried beans absorb liquid when cooked so increase the liquid in the recipe when you cook with dried beans.
Dried beans expand to about 2.5 times their original volume when soaked and 3.5 times their original volume when cooked.
1 can of beans = 15 ounces undrained = about 10 ounces drained = 1/4 pound dried beans.
1 pound dried beans = about 2 cups dried beans = about 5 cups soaked beans = about 7 cups cooked beans = 4 cans drained beans.
Beans recipes
Bourbon BBQ Baked Beans. Three ways to make this classic soooo much better than the stuff from the can.
Hoppin John. Hoppin' John (shown at right) is a bean, rice, and pork dish popular in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. It probably originated with black slaves from the Caribbean brought in through Charleston around which there were large rice plantations. It is still very popular among the Gullah on the Carolina coastal islands.
Grannies Texas Beans. During hard times, beans have kept many Texans alive. For more than a few, the bean pot contained simply beans, salt, pepper, and maybe a little pork fat or bacon. You can go crazy with additions, but this is the classic, simple, home style recipe. When you visit classic Texas pitstops, beans are almost always on the menu, and outsiders, particularly Yankees, are often surprised to discover that they are simple and not sweet.
This page was revised 4/26/2009
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