recipes & tips
What to do if you forgot to soak the beans overnight? After being picked through and rinsed, beans have traditionally been soaked overnight at room temperature in enough water to cover them by about 2 inches. Some bean experts now advocate a quicker “hot-soaking” method: Place the beans in a large saucepan or stockpot with 1 quart of water for each cup of beans. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, cook for about 2 minutes, remove the pot from the heat, and allow the beans to soak and swell in the pot for 1 hour. Then simply follow the regular recipe directions. The reason we presoak beans is to reduce their infamous gas-producing properties. Beans contain many complex sugar molecules, which are indigestible in the human stomach. If the beans are not presoaked, these sugars make their way into the intestines. There, local bacteria consume them and give off their well-known by-product: noxious gasses.
