Beans!

[NotQuiteCockney]

Heston Blumenthal says I don't have to soak beans. And McGee says I don't have to either.

I thought we had to soak everything but lentils, or we'd get poisoned!

Very strange.

hmm i read that you can not soak them, but you have to do something like boil, replace with cold water, boil again , replace cold water... etc etc and then cook for longer!
think i'll stick to soaking though

No, you don't have to change the water, although that's an option. But you lose a lot of the nutrients that way, and the flavour.

Both McGee and Blumenthal recommend long low-temperature cooking. McGee recommends cooking with acids, sugar or calcium to keep them from collapsing during long cooking. (Molasses has sugar + calcium, tomatoes have acid. For example.)

McGee only recommends presoaking if you're living at high altitude.

Hmm, though I guess if you cook them in the soaking water, you probably aren't losing too much flavour or nutrients.

McGee also recommends cooking with as little water as possible.

hmm interesting... i guess they still get "soaked" just warmly! lol

how long do they reckon you need to cook them for?

Blumenthal is talking about leaving them in a turned-off oven overnight. Well, that's what he did. The time it takes depends on the bean, what else is in the water (salt and baking soda speed cooking), and how hard your water is, according to McGee. (Anyway, McGee doesn't generally give timings, it's a reference work.)

hmmm so it is still technically soaking then!

And yeah, they're still getting soaked, effectively. Apparently, if you cook them at a high temperature, the heat gets in before the water does, and the heat breaks down the outer skin more than you want it to.

that makes sense i guess.

Oh, apparently 2 hours soaking does quite a bit. Or, you can blanch the beans for 1.5 minutes in boiling water, then 2-3 hours of soaking in cool water will do as much good as 10-12 hours soaking in cool water with no blanching. Damn, I love McGee.

It's McGee, it has to make sense!

Seriously, it's a food encyclopedia, anything you need to know is in there.