Carla Makes Beans | From the Test Kitchen | Bon Appétit

meet my mom hi guys, I'm Karla, I'm here in the bone appetite

test

kitchen

and I'm going to make the perfect pot of

beans

. Beans are one of those things I get questions about all the time, how do you make them tender? you let them know well how to even make them not fart how to make them not fall apart i want them to fall apart when i put them in soup when i make them alone so many questions about

beans

but for me knowing how to cook the perfect pot of beans is one of those things that those who know the technique will make beans the right way for the rest of their life pache troffer the chef at Marlow & Sons in Williamsburg Brooklyn made the most amazing beans that my then vegetarian son no longer vegetarian eight beans like I had never seen before the baby beans and Pat shared his method with me which really synthesized a lot of things the first thing you need to do is buy the good bean these are butter beans aka baby llamas the method I am showing you will work with any bean Giant beans.

Corona beans would be a very good option in this preparation. The amount of time since they were fresh beans also when you buy them as dried beans is that measure of freshness and it really matters, a being that has been dried for many years sitting in a dusty place and a dusty old supermarket will take much longer to cook and It won't have as much flavor as a freshly dried bean once you've made it. I have to soak the beans, sorry, but it's true, the best thing you can do is bring the beans to a boil, cover them with cold water, bring them to a boil, cover and let them sit for an hour.

It kind of mimics what happens overnight, so soaking overnight is better, so you choose how you want to be, you want to be good under the big cold water coming out of the tap, folks, and I'm going to make a generous. quantity because this will also be my cooking liquid, that's other people who ask all the time if I drain the beans if you cook them in the water you soak them in, isn't that why you get gas? I don't know why I could get gas but it's not because of the soaking liquid from the beans so we soaked them overnight obviously yesterday was Sunday so you did this at home.

Denise did this at her house. That's a real dedication, but she looks at the difference without soaking, look at how small they are. the same bean, much thicker, is fully hydrated, it will help you soften the basic secrets to making beans, it's these three things, salt, fat and time, that's really it. If you have salt, fat, and time, you have everything you need to make an amazing pot of beans first thing in the morning. What I'm going to do is add a little salt, a lot of salt, beans can take a lot of salt, like potatoes, eggs, rice, other things that are very basic that people are very confused about and salting the water is a little bit . like salting water to make pasta, it means that the bean will be seasoned on medium high heat too high because I want this to boil when it's about to boil, I'll skim off any foamy substance that

makes

it to the surface.

It's totally normal whenever you see that foam rising to the surface that it's just impurities, it could be little bits of protein, it could be other bits of impurities that are being released and rising to the surface and I really don't want them to be there all the time. . time, that's why I'm going to skip the temperature is going to drop a lot I want the beans to simmer incredibly gently the more you stir the more likely they are to crush each other they will cook unevenly their flesh will break through their Skin the cooking liquid will become cloudy, so once it has simmered, lower the heat and go as gentle as you can, you can put in as much or as little garlic as you like.

I'm going to smash and peel. of the garlic and then it's like being there, the other thing that Patch taught me when I emailed him and begged him to tell me what the secret was to his secret pot of beans: he was salting every step of the way, that was a stuff. the other thing was he talked about how much fat man puts in the cooking liquid and he said with an inch of fat jack on top use whatever good fat you have so olive oil you want something that tastes good because if you're using so much, it's really becoming a flavoring agent of your being and then it's going to make the broth that you end up with that much more amazing, but then he was like any rendered fat you have lying around and for someone who is literally hoarding little fattened jars all over my refrigerator.

I mean, you just couldn't give someone better news, so in the optional category that we have the lemon garlic patch, it was like, oh, you know, when you have a charred lemon lying around, just throw it out and I. It was like, guess what, I never have a charred lemon lying around, but let's make a charred lemon, you can also throw in a whole lemon, you can throw in some lemon peel and then herbs, fresh herbs, dried herbs and spices. He likes cilantro, fennel, and Beans are really great together, you don't have to add them. Today I have oregano and mint, so I'm going to put them in.

He said if you don't have them, if you have some candied garlic, you can use them instead. raw garlic but raw garlic was totally fine and then actually any herb you have, I mean rosemary, thyme, it's great with beans, sage, but a little bit goes a long way and then these are more like in oregano, It's a little oilier. category of hardy herbs and mint is definitely fresh. I'm not going to cut them or do anything. I'm just going to put the whole sprigs in and then he also recommended, as part of his cooking practice with beans, adding a couple of different herbs. times during cooking, so you get this long cooked grass flavor and then you get a little bit at the end, let's see if we have foam, oh yeah, it's foamy now.

Now I've turned these really annoying cheese jingles, glorious cheese into beans, glorious beans in my head, sorry, okay, so we've managed to simmer, we've also achieved a good amount of foam, so I'm going to handle both situations lowering the heat and just removing this, it smells really good like hat, so now that this is simmering. I'm going to char this lemon again, but why not? You don't really have to do anything, just let them go and I'll add the oregano and again any herbs you want to use, that's fine as long as you like the flavor of it and this is mint, so some of the mint leaves and the oregano leaves are they will release and become with each other being family and those that aren't you can just take out the twigs at the end if you want to be more controlled about it now adding two different types of poultry fat obviously you can make this vegetarian just use all olive oil and then to get that really generous fat limit that Pat talked about, I need to supplement with a little bit of olive oil, so that's okay.

So when you buy a can of beans, you know you're not really using that liquid, like nine times out of ten, you're not messing with the can being liquid, it's just very thick and chunky, but when you make your own. beans, this liquid is like a magic sauce and when you finish the beans, they may even be runny and don't throw it away because you use it for braces and to make other pots of beans, salt more, salt again as you go, yes You're Using this is diamond, if you use Morton's, use half the amount you see me and just throw it away with abandon.

All you black pepper haters just went to a makeup tutorial. They're done, they're out of here. Okay, these smell very different. than when they were fresh when you dropped them, so this is a really exquisite situation that will cook for as long as it takes, as the patch describes, for most of the cooking time of the beans you will feel like nothing is happening and that They will never be tender and they will never be creamy and they will never be cooked and then there will come a magical moment when they are perfect and worth the wait each time checking the temperature and if the water seems to have dropped too low that lake the beans have no room to move without touching the surface then just add more water so in the meantime we're going to make some dressings now I'm going to make an aioli and I Olli is a homemade mayonnaise it's an emulsified sauce where you use an egg yolk and a little bit of garlic and olive oil to make mayonnaise I only need the yolk.

Is this small bowl big enough? I think it will happen, yes, save the whites for making soufflé, any pinch of salt, okay, here's our garlic. If there wasn't enough garlic, you need the taste of raw garlic, you know what I mean, sometimes I always have lemon juice without splashing water, so the water will just help with the emulsification. Sometimes I always have lemon juice. Sometimes they have mustard. are all good options, you actually need a certain amount of liquid available for the fat to bind, which is why sometimes people put their lemon in from the beginning.

The only trick to storing I Olli if you haven't done it before is that the recipes go to Let's say you first add the oil drop by drop and I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but you really have to do it drop by drop. This is something that can be made in a blender, but every time I make it in a blender I ruin it, so I always make them by hand. I'm also comfortable doing I oles so maybe I went a little faster than drop by drop so the initial stage is important because that's when you set the emulsion and setting the emulsion is basically the fat particles. and the liquid particles are fine, I'll join you anyway and then once everyone has decided that they're going to be in that chemical embrace, then everyone else should join in.

This is like, oh, this is already an emulsion party. I can just kind of jump into the situation so you can go a little bit faster, it's creamy, it's not greasy or shiny and I don't see it as an individual like an oil stain, but if your emulsion breaks, which would be really fun if mine does it, you can do it. A couple of different ways, you can start over with a little bit of water and a little bit of mustard if you feel comfortable or you can start over with a fresh egg yolk and beat the broken mixture with that egg yolk like it's like even though you were adding the oil from the beginning, okay, done, hand-mixed aioli, okay, Iola is ready.

I'm going to keep that cold that will be placed with a spoon at the end, let's check that our beans chase the liquid and things. The beans aren't cooked, they're snapping but I want to taste the liquid because if it's undersalted now it will be undersalted forever it's on the other side mmm bean tea drink it that's delicious ok I love everything right now I'm going to make bread grated because why wouldn't you have stale bread? lying around your little cabin in the woods I'll just break it up into bigger pieces and then throw it in the food processor okay again you don't have to make breadcrumbs if you want to make beans all you need is the fat and the salts and the beans and the water and the time TIME large skillet many different ways to make breadcrumbs this is just one of them another way would be to maybe mix the bread with the oil and put it in the oven, but I'm going to do it this way in a large skillet over medium-high heat when the oil is hot.

While we're here, the breadcrumbs come in. We can look at our beans, they are beautiful, so bright. Okay, the oil is boiling. Yes, I think that was enough fat. These will be good, so I'm just cooking them. I make sure they all absorb some of the oil until they are toasted and crispy. Why am I toasting breadcrumbs to give the beans texture? is the answer just a little crunchy bean USA it smells amazing you can see what happened the broth is still quite clear it smells very lemony it smells very Irby the beans themselves are actually very intact look beautiful job of not stimulating them too much Other trick I read is that when the skin of the bean curls back that's how you know they're ready.

I don't think that's true, but it's great, they're totally creamy on all sides, it's not like it's mushy. part on the outside and then a tender part in the middle were cooked very, very evenly. I want to try that liquid so I like my food. Could it be bigger? There's a little bit of your flavor like a little bit of the charred lemon like a little bit of bitterness and if you remember or remember, keep in mind that salt, sweet, salt, bitter, are those four flavors that you want to have in balance. Another thing that will make them extra delicious is a good shot of vinegar, which I really love. especially with beans, so I'm going to add that this is great with any lentils, they are great if you finish them with vinegar.

I'm really thinking about this, it's almost like we made a stew out of the beans and the beans have been stewed. in this liquid and to really season the liquid itself. Geremy Fox is the one who told me that if the broth tastes good, the beans will taste good and I think those are words to live by, so just a pair of gloves, this is sherry vinegar, you could use red wine, you could use white wine, but that will really make them even more delicious. I wouldn't add it veryearly in the cooking time because I don't want the cooked vinegar to taste pretty good and then the other thing.

What I'm going to do here at the last minute is add more of the same herbs that I used before, the mint and oregano are really going to infuse into the cooking liquid like tea and I know it sounds crazy but they need more salt, so as you remember, we also have I Olli and we have breadcrumbs toasted quite unevenly, so be very encouraged because this is the kind of thing that I would add, like a head of kale or chard or escarole at the end and just let them wilt that moment, suddenly, you have beans, beans and green soup, mmm, these things that you think might be beans, they're actually closer, okay, I've got my aioli, mmm, who wants to go first?

I'm going to make breadcrumbs, no, I'm fine. So the idea with I Olli is that as you eat the aioli it will infuse into the liquid in a very delicious way so you get that fresh garlic flavor and then the breadcrumbs have a fantastic texture mmm, now I'm like how messy they are in different textures, who cares, little pepper, I love pepper, I would love to have this for dinner mmm, I just love looking at it, droplets, there are crunchy, creamy beans, there is a Yoli, it looks very good, so a perfect pot of beans once again of the salt, fat and time, buy a good bean, treat it very well, I'm just going to take a bite, get it out of here, this is the best stop, it's too good, it really is too good.

I recommend everyone to make perfect pradhans. It couldn't be. Happier right now. I'm very happy. Could you all leave so I can eat my beans? No, I'm really going mm-hmm, delicious bean.