Here is the chicken bean soup I cooked for dinner tonight
I soaked 1/3 lb of the royal corona bean overnight
caramelized 1 med onions, with EVOO, then added sweet peppers, tomatoes , garlic in that order,
added enough water to over the beans more than 3 inches of water
added a but more than 1 tbsp of each of the indie and mexican oregano ( by the way, the oregano is no more fragrant than the ones I bought from Costco) , a few bay leaves, a sprig of rosemary, the peel of 2 mandarin oranges, ( was out of lemon) brought it to a boil, simmered it for 2 hours(checked every 30 minutes) until soft.
Last night, I had over half of a Costco rotisserie chicken ( or more , as I gave part of the legs to my 2 poms and a small amount of breast and wings for dinner. Saved all the bones, boiled the chicken with caramelized onion in EVOO, garlic., took out the bones and shredded the chicken meat.
When the beans were soft, I added the two mixture together, added S/P, some cracked red pepper ( try not to make it spicy as I want to taste the soup without my usual spicy dish) then added around half a pound of cut up asparagus, brought it to a boil and set it aside.
MY ANALYSIS:
It was a very good soup but probably will not do it that often routinely. Takes too long to watch the soup as I do not own a pressure cooker. Son away, not returning till late, so left it out for him. Hope the asparagus does not turn soggy and hope he likes it with jalapena cheese bread from Wegmans.
2.Would have liked to add carrots and celery but am out. Mushroom but my son will not eat mushroom
There was not enough beans for the soup, would have like to have a mixture
Perhaps, you can ask your friend from RG if the time needed to soften the beans can be published so a variety of beans can be used. That is one of the complaint my son had for the chili . I do not think I would cooked different beans at different times. I can imagine my electric bill going thru the roof.
The complaint was that the beans were not softened?
I have several packages of RC beans, but since I ordered them, have been working on low carb/; diabetes prevention. Woul love input on that.
Did u read my comments on the chili?
Some one commented that they do not need to be presoaked
That is wrong.
I presoaked overnight the eye of the goat for the chili as well as the royal corona beans for the chicken soup.
I had to cook the eye of the goat for 3 hours plus add it to my cooked chili for another 30 min for the venison and the beans to meld and soften the beans some more.
As for the royal corona beans, it took just over 2 hours of simmering after it came to a boil before I aded the precooked chicken broth and chicken meat.
They were tasty but my son’s complaint was that there was not enough beans in the chili since I usually use 3 kinds of beans. As I mentioned, someone commented that the different beans have different cooking time, so, if I were to add 3 varieties of their beans, it would be too expensive and time consuming to cook them separately not counting the time in cooking the venison or beef. ( carne part)
I still have 3 other kinds of beans
I am not sure it is worth it for the time spent except at least for the tarbais beans as they cost $20/lb from D’Artagnan and even up to $30 when I googled before.
I am waiting for a friend who rave and requested time and again for my duck confit to visit. I will cook that as it takes many hours of preparing. I had used Whole Food’s white Canneloni beans before, took more than the 4.5 hours required. It was very good but I think maybe I need tarbais beans to form that crust. I am told some cooks use bread crumbs or panko to give it that crust but now that I have 6 lbs of the tarbais beans, I will use 3 lbs of beans for that recipe. It is rather expensive dish. My son loves it but does not like the duck fat that I have to add to it. I also cannot find the garlic sausage except driving to DC market for it but the Italian Grocery near me told me their polish sausage is full of garlic so I will give that a try and add lots of garlic into the cassoulet .
As for low carb, I also have to watch that bec I am a recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes, supposedly stress triggered. Rice, potato, makes my sugar go up. I had never eaten too much beans as it gives me GI upset. I make chili bec my son loves it and I usually8 make somekinid of a casserole that he can eat between meals and after MN. Chili is one such dish.
HOPE THIS HELPS
I AM NOT SURE I WILL ORDER AGAIN EXCEPT TARBAI BEANS IF THEY ARE WORTH IT.
THE 2 KINDS OF OREGANO IS NOT REALLY WORTH IT EITHER
THE BIG BOTTLE OF OREGANO FROM COSTCO SEEMS TO HAVE SAME FRAGRANCE AND COSTS SO MUCH LESS.
“my son’s complaint was that there was not enough beans in the chili”
I see, thanks!
"As for low carb, I also have to watch that bec I am a recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes, supposedly stress "
Okay. I was diagnosed “pre-diabetic”, and have been working a program, and I’m pleased with the results. I have to say the “stress” explanation makes me a bit crazy, and I know crazy. Fortunately when I hanker, I hanker fat, and not carbs.
Apparently the american diabetes association categorizes beans as a “superfood” , to keep it low carb just use the beans in a veg based dish (vs beans and rice kind of thing)
I do not eat a lot of beans, usually only with chili con carne as it is not agreeable with my GI system. I threw away the soaking liquid, then started with fresh water to cook the beans
My son did not eat the soup last night as he did not return till after midnight but he did have the soup for lunch and a bowl for dinner together with Costco’s beer battered trident wild cod that i had pop in the oven for 17minutes ( working hard in the garden til dust). He says the soup is good.
By the way, FYI, I had 2 small bowls for lunch, a champagne mango ,a few coconut cookies from Costco. my preprandial sugar was reasonable . It was in the 120’s range.
I had the last of the soup again with the beer battered fish and a mandarin orange. Will see if it is high again tomorrow
I do not spike unless I eat rice, potato. I even eat Lind’s truffles, 2 a day which does not bother me.
I can eat barilla protein pasta which I love with shrimp pesto and sugar does not spike too high either. Just in the 120’a range/
Jaymes, I know you love Rancho Gordo
Today, my third time to cook their beans. This time, I experimented with their cranberry beans.
As usual, I soaked them overnight, threw soaking liquid away, with fresh water, beans came to a boil, simmered, had my timer on for 3 hours. ( that is how long it took to simmer the corona as well as the eye of the goat beans till tender) To my surprise, I was still in the kitchen, went to check the beans at 45 minutes, they were already soft, almost too soft, with some of the beans splitting up.
I bought a rotisserie chicken, shredded the meat, boiled the carcass together with chicken broth fro poaching chicken breast a few days ago for chicken salad, added seasonings, some vegetables and then after an hour of simmering, added the beans to the chicken.
THE LESSON: DO NOT USE DIFFERENT BEANS UNLESS ONE IS READY TO COOK THEM SEPARATELY AS THE DIFFERENT VARIETIES HAVE DIFFERENT COOKING TIMES.
SOUP WAS GOOD BUT I THINK AT $5.99 FOR A POUND OF BEANS, THAT IS STILL MORE THAN I AM WILLING TO PAY IN THE FUTURE FOR SOUP BEANS . Hope the 6 pounds of tarbais beans is wroth it when I am ready to cook D’artagnan’s Duck Confit Cassoulet. Too busy nowadays, gardening to even take pictures of food cooked.
I thought the ones I have used fro rancho gordo are pretty good.
But, are t hey worth $5.99-$6.99/pound?
I am not sure until I cook the tarbais beans which retails fro $20-$30 /lbs elsewhere ( $20 from D’Artagnan) as they are $6.99/pound from rancho gordo. Am still waiting for an occasion to make the D’artagnan duck confit casserole.
That was an interesting, honest article. It reminds me of the Whole Foods vs. Walmart article
In the end, it’s up to the consumer to justify if the marginal difference in taste is worth the hefty hike in price. Of course, to some people, price doesn’t matter, which is who, I assume, Sando is targeting.
As for me, I like supporting small businesses, and I like Sando’s quest to save long-forgotten breeds, so I’d buy some to support his cause.
Thanks that’s a helpful article.
I buy them on occasion- not that easy to find so i order from them about twice a year- and i feel they’re great for when the beans are the focus of the dish. And if it’s a vegetarian meal it’s certainly a significant savings over purchasing an organic/grass fed/free range blahblahblab animal protein. I mean yeah it’s $6-7/lb but for easily 4-6 portions aka $1 per person for the protein for the meal. Which now kinda sounds like a bargain…
I’ve held out on expensive beans, but my love for gigantes /broad beans generally might tip the scale. I’ve been so disappointed with the grocery store variety - many split open during soaking, and the others during cooking. I’ve varied the times for each, similar outcomes.
Don’t know if It was a bad batch, but I may be hitting up RG soon. Although perhaps I should try the (virtual) indian store first.
@Rainycatcooks, fascinating article, thanks so much for finding and linking it.
@Saregama, if you like gigantes you might really want to try the RG Royal Corona beans, they are absolutely the best gigantes bean I have ever cooked, I am an omni but there is absolutely no need for meat when you have Corona beans. I make huge batches and freeze in individual portions and never tire of them.
