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Post by ferdzy on Mar 23, 2017 12:36:49 GMT -5
Allrighty! It has been dawning on me for the last few years that cooking time is a factor to consider when I decide what dry beans to grow. Not the only one, but still; a consideration. So I took 8 beans, grown last summer and stored in the cold cellar since, and cooked them all in the same pot of water with some means of keeping track of them. Here are the results.  Along the top row, from left to right; Arikara Yellow, A white f3(?) out of Deseronto Potato, and Red Swan In the second row, from left to right; Anellino Yellow, An f2 (?) out of Octarora, and Fagiolini del Trasimeno (the only non-phaseolus) Finally at the bottom, left to right; Dolloff and Anselloni's Bologna. NOTES: I cooked some more of Anselloni's and Arikara than shown on the plate of raw beans. All beans went into the pot at the same time, albeit with some of them in spice or tea balls, which may have affected cooking times slightly. They were brought up to a boil with the timer set for 10 minutes (so boiled for perhaps 4 or 5 minutes) then were turned off and covered for 1 hour. They were then boiled until done, and I noted the time they were determined to be so. Some got overcooked a bit as determining they were done and managing to get them out of the pot efficiently were 2 different things. No salt was added.  Cooked beans are not in the same positions as when raw. Top row beans from left to right; Arikara Yellow, Red Swan, and f3 out of Deseronto Potato Mid row beans from left to right; Dolloff, Anselloni's Bologna, with Anellino Yellow intruding then f2 from Octarora Last row from left to right; Fagiolini del Trasimeno and Anellino Yellow Cooking times: Fagiolini del Trasimeno: 1 hour 40 minutes f3 of Deseronto Potato: 1 hour 50 minutes Arikara Yellow: 1 hour 50 minutes Anellino Yellow: 1 hour 55 minutes f2 of Octarora: 1 hour 55 minutes Dolloff: 2 hours Anselloni's Bologna: 2 hours 20 minutes Conclusions: Not surprisingly, there is a co-relation between size and cooking time. The FdT actually took longer than expected, but they got the smallest container and I think that did slow things down for them. They were pretty jammed in there towards the end. A white bean cross I've been growing out for a couple of years now was the surprise second cooked bean, although I noted some variation in done-ness. Segregation of qualities still working their way out? Maybe. Mostly, I was surprised how little variation there was. These were all well-kept beans from last year so they cooked fast in general. Poorly stored, older beans would probably see the cooking times increased generally and the differences more pronounced. I know I've cooked beans for much longer than this batch... cooking time includes the preliminary boil and soak. |
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Post by mskrieger on Mar 23, 2017 15:00:17 GMT -5
I've found bean cooking time varies mostly by species. Garbanzos taking by far the longest, even pre-soaked. Your cook times seem par for the course for unsoaked Phaseolus. What species are the fagiolini?
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Post by ferdzy on Mar 23, 2017 21:30:09 GMT -5
They're a vigna (cow pea).
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andyb
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Post by andyb on Mar 23, 2017 23:04:47 GMT -5
Nice experiment! I would have thought that there would have been more variation in cooking time as well.
I did a tasting trial of runner beans a few weeks ago. To keep the beans separate and to be able to taste the different beans along with their cooking liquid, I put each variety in a different jelly jar with some water and then put the whole batch of jars in a large cooking pot with a few inches of water in the bottom. Basically a double-boiler system. When it was boiling hard, bubbles came up in the jars, so I felt good that any noxious stuff was deactivated. The main problem was that they rattled around and made an awful racket for the whole time they were cooking, since the jars were sitting directly on the bottom of the pot.
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Post by ferdzy on Mar 24, 2017 7:19:27 GMT -5
Yeah, andyb, canners have a rack on the bottom to avoid that clatter - they can actually clank around enough to break without one. How did the experiment go? How many varieties and were there noticeable differences in flavour? I have really not done any cooking of runner beans. I know I don't like their flavour as green beans so haven't bothered with the dry beans either. But maybe I should give them a try... |
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Post by mskrieger on Mar 24, 2017 9:16:32 GMT -5
Oh yeah, Vigna cook quickly--I sometimes makes southern style black eyed peas without soaking in advance, and they rarely take longer than 30min to cook. And the cooking liquid is delicious. So good that I rarely make Phaseolus species at all.
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Post by Walk on Mar 24, 2017 14:47:30 GMT -5
Dry white runner beans (also called buffalo beans or potato beans) are EXCELLENT! They have a potato-ey texture, although they do take longer to cook because of their size. But size isn't the only variance in cooking common beans. We grow a variety called Sangre de Toro (blood of the bull). They are a quite small red bean but they take longer to cook than any other bean we grow, runner bean included. One of our quick cookers is quite large in fact (even when it's over a year old). Of course, all the beans have different flavors and textures - and some hold their shape even when tender while others make mush, which is part of why we grow so many varieties, some of which are specific for a particular recipe.
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Post by steev on Mar 24, 2017 20:11:31 GMT -5
Right; kidney beans are fine in chili, but not so much as re-frieds.
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Post by ferdzy on Mar 25, 2017 9:00:59 GMT -5
Oh yeah, Vigna cook quickly--I sometimes makes southern style black eyed peas without soaking in advance, and they rarely take longer than 30min to cook. And the cooking liquid is delicious. So good that I rarely make Phaseolus species at all. I've only been growing a few varieties for a couple of years. They are not as well adapted to growing here as phaseolus. It's not the temperatures, it's the day length. They are definitely turning out to be possible though, given a few years to adapt. |
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Post by ferdzy on Mar 25, 2017 9:06:20 GMT -5
Yeah, Walk and steev; cooking time is indeed just one factor. The Anseloni's Bologna took 50% longer to cook (if you don't take the soak time into consideration) than the FdT, but they are in NO danger of being discarded from the garden. In fact they are in the top 3 for space allotted as they are a really, really tasty bean with a good texture. Speaking of tasty beans with good texture, I have never seen the Anellino Yellow suggested anywhere as a dry bean. I had a bunch more go to seed than I needed so I tried them out and was really impressed. They are quite small when dry, but swell up a lot. In spite of that they have a very dense, smooth texture and fine flavour. I'll be planting more of them. |
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Post by mskrieger on Mar 27, 2017 12:14:47 GMT -5
Oh yeah, Vigna cook quickly--I sometimes makes southern style black eyed peas without soaking in advance, and they rarely take longer than 30min to cook. And the cooking liquid is delicious. So good that I rarely make Phaseolus species at all. I've only been growing a few varieties for a couple of years. They are not as well adapted to growing here as phaseolus. It's not the temperatures, it's the day length. They are definitely turning out to be possible though, given a few years to adapt. That's interesting. Your summer days are only an hour or so longer than mine, but it makes a big difference I guess. How did you figure out it was a daylength issue? |
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Post by ferdzy on Mar 27, 2017 20:42:35 GMT -5
mskrieger, We planted them the first time around June 1st, our usual time for planting beans. These plants were supposed to get to a foot, foot and a half tall. They didn't. They kept growing, and growing and growing, until they were 6 to 8 feet long. Finally, in early to mid September they started flowering and forming pods. We were able to get enough ripe seed to continue. We have since discovered that we can plant them as late as early July and get blossoms and peas in mid September. They still grow to about 4 feet long first. I suspect we could plant them later, and get blossoms and peas in mid September... in other words, flowering and formation of pods does not start until approaching equinox, the end. This has turned out to be kind of useful. We grow the fastest producing, most determinate peas we can find and pull them out and freeze them by the end of June, allowing us to plant the Fagiolini del Trasimeno to follow them. I suspect if we have a really cool fall we may lose them, but most years we have just enough time for a reasonable crop to ripen. We had a similar problem with Red Noodle, but I gave up on it because we didn't love the flavour of that particular variety. I think it could have adapted if we had persevered. We tried a green long bean as well but it was bought from a local seed company and seemed reasonably well adapted for here already. That's the only one I've run across so far though.
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Post by mskrieger on Mar 28, 2017 11:04:11 GMT -5
We had a similar problem with Red Noodle, but I gave up on it because we didn't love the flavour of that particular variety. I think it could have adapted if we had persevered. We tried a green long bean as well but it was bought from a local seed company and seemed reasonably well adapted for here already. That's the only one I've run across so far though. Ah. We grow a green long bean, seed originally purchased from Johnny's. That's the one that flowers and sets seed continuously through the season. It tastes fantastic raw, my kids like to graze on it, and it has that good longbean flavor when quick-stir fried. I purchase my black eyed peas from the store, due to lack of garden space. Southern Exposure has an enormous selection of Vigna for dried bean production...if I was looking for germplasm I would definitely check out their catalogue. (Although obviously, they are focused on the midAtlantic and Southeast US and wouldn't be selecting with your daylength in mind.) Anyway, nice to see the Phaseolus comparisons. Cooking is a very important part of gardening! |
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Post by Walk on Mar 29, 2017 7:50:22 GMT -5
I've only been growing a few varieties for a couple of years. They are not as well adapted to growing here as phaseolus. It's not the temperatures, it's the day length. They are definitely turning out to be possible though, given a few years to adapt. That's interesting. Your summer days are only an hour or so longer than mine, but it makes a big difference I guess. How did you figure out it was a daylength issue? Interesting about the Vigna being affected by day length. I always thought it was a temperature thing when they weren't productive here in SE Minnesota. Our summer days can be hot but most nights are cool. But we finally found a variety that did produce here, Colossus from Southern Exposure Seed Co. The plants were small, upright and entirely mature before fall frost. We're growing it again this year so we'll know if last year was a fluke or not. |
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andyb
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Post by andyb on Mar 30, 2017 0:58:13 GMT -5
canners have a rack on the bottom to avoid that clatter How did the experiment go? How many varieties and were there noticeable differences in flavour? I know I had a plate with holes in it for canning once upon a time, but I must have lost it a few moves ago. I should try to pick up another one. I'm not sure where the notes from the runner bean taste trial ended up. If I find them I'll write up a note with comments about the specific varieties. I grew twelve varieties in a trial last year and had enough beans from nine to cook up and taste. In general, they had a lot of flavor and they varied quite a bit. There was only one that had a kind of harsh taste that we didn't like all that well. All of the others were good in their own way. I remember that Moldovanesti Buffalo had a very nice flavor with a distinct sweetness. They also had different textures, with smooth or mushy or slightly grainy flesh and variably softer and tougher skins. In the end, I decided not to eliminate any from my breeding projects because of cooking quality except for the one harsh variety. As a comparison, they all had about flavors about as strong as Black Coco, the common bean with one of the strongest flavors I've found so far. Other common beans with relatively strong flavors I've liked are Pussac Punay, Bola Roja, Fort Portal Violet, and Kathika. It's interesting that all of these, except for Black Coco, were imported from Africa or South America. |
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