Cuisson des bines

A Nutritious Way to Cook Beans?
I have several questions that come up regularly when I cook. Regarding cooking beans, I have read that the availability of nutrients in the beans goes up the longer you soak them, with the optimal soaking time being 24 hours. But I wonder if the loss of water-soluble vitamins to the soaking water offsets the nutrients gained by doing this. In these days of thrift, I want to get all the nutrition I can from the pricey organic food I buy. Also, doesn’t cooking the beans in the soaking water make them more gassy?

Harold McGee responds:
The main reasons for presoaking beans are to shorten the cooking time substantially, and to leach out the indigestible carbohydrates that make beans gassy. The disadvantage of presoaking is that you also leach out many other soluble materials, including vitamins and minerals.

You retain more nutrients by cooking the beans in the soak water, but you also retain the gassy carbohydrates. I recommend soaking beans, then cooking them in the same water at a bare simmer for at least a couple of hours, even if they’re soft before then. Extended cooking breaks down the gassy carbohydrates.

Source: The NY Times

Harold McGee est l'auteur du livre On Food and Cooking. Il conseil certains des meilleurs chefs dans le monde.