I like pretty much every kind of bean, but if pressed I’d probably say that red kidney beans are my very favorite. I love the texture and how substantial they are. They do take a bit of extra soak time, but it’s worth it.
I picked up some black-eyed peas a couple weeks ago; I’ve never had what I’d call an exceptional bowl of them, but I figured I’d give it a try since (not to brag) I can make really good beans and I’d never tried cooking them before. I made the best bowl of them I’d ever had— collard greens, boudin, lots of aromatics, herbs, and spices. After all that effort though, I still felt like they’d have been better with pinto beans instead. C’est la vie.
So what kind of bean do you prefer, and which ones leave you cold? Also, any advice on black-eyed peas would be nice; I’m still not ready to give up on them.
I adore beans, but there’s usually some trade-offs, complications and permutations involved.
Kidney beans are absolutely awesome, yes, but typically take a long time to cook. And yes, of course I know about pre-soaking them the night before. But here’s a funny story for you–
Some years back I bought myself a big, clunky grain / whatever grinder. It’s this steel-constructed tank that clamps on to a table, etc almost like one of those badass, olde-timey corn-shuckers:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LDDLIDMZabg
Now, that excellent device indeed allowed me to throw bags of kidney beans (and other big beans, like Limas) in to the hopper, and grind them in to much-smaller size, which naturally cooked much faster. Problem? Weirdly (and I still don’t know why this is, exactly), the kidney beans in particular lost… all that unique, delicious flavor of theirs. So in the end, it pretty-much amounted to eating ‘bean-gruel.’ Holy fluff, that was not what I signed up for. :S
Nowadays I just add a bit of baking soda to the beans, and Robert’s your avuncular figure. :D