Beans are a great source of protein. In this hard period we encounter in 2020 with the pandemic, one of the interesting pieces of advice I saw on the internet was” learn how to cook beans”.
I always ate the beans ready made from the can. However, they are a lot cheaper and easier to preserve in their dry form. The only trick is how to make them boil fast: soak them for min 12 hours in water with bicarbonate soda in the fridge.
Beans stew (0.35 eur/portion)
Servings: 3-4
Waiting time: 12 hours
Cooking time beans: 1-2 hours
Cooking time stew: 30 min
Difficulty: medium
Ingredients
- 1 carrot + 1 onion for the boiling the beans (0.15 eur)
- 1 onion (0.1 eur)
- 200 g of beans (0.5 eur)
- 1/2 can of chopped tomatoes (or the grated pulp from 2 tomatoes) (0.5 eur)
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp of sweet paprika
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- parsley (optional)
- 1 tsp of bicarbonate soda
Directions
- Wash well the beans. Place them in a pot and pour over the cold water (500 ml should be enough) and a teaspoon on bicarbonate soda.
- Keep them in the fridge min 12 hours. They will soak in most of the water.
- Wash them well. Place them in a big pot with an onion and a carrot and with 800 ml of water.
- Bring to a boil and then add a teaspoon of salt.
- Let it boil on small fire until they become very soft. Mine took surprisingly little, 1 hour, but it greatly depends on the beans.
- You can take out the veggies you don’t want to use further.
- In a cast iron skillet, cook the cut onion on small fire in the olive oil.
- Add the cooked beans together with some liquid.
- Add the tomatoes and let them cook 15 min on small to medium fire.
- You can now add the pepper and paprika and, optionally, the parsley.
- Serve with some pulled meat or next to some roasted pepper. You can sprinkle on it some extra olive oil, if you wish.
