Never Boil Your Beans Again. Try This Old Mexican Trick Instead

#beans #mexicanfood #frijoles 📖 Get La Cocina de Bertha, every recipe in this kitchen written down (372 pages): https://berthascookbook.com Mija, look in this pot with me. Half the beans split open, the other half still chalk in the middle, all of it in gray water that tastes like the pot. It was never you. The bag told you to boil them hard, and that boil is the whole reason. The beans I grew up on were never boiled, and at number one I show you what my mother did instead. ⭐ FRIJOLES DE LA OLLA, MY MOTHER'S POT (page 92) • 1 lb (about 2 heaping cups) dried pinto or black beans, from a store that sells a LOT of beans • Water to cover by 2 to 3 inches, and a kettle of HOT water standing by • 1/2 white onion, whole, in one piece • 3 cloves garlic, peeled, whole • 1 generous tbsp manteca (lard), or a few tbsp neutral oil • 1 tbsp salt, AT THE START (page 92) • A sprig of epazote in the last 30 minutes (dried works; a bay leaf is a different but honest substitute) • NO tomato, salsa, lime or vinegar until the beans are fully soft ⭐ THE 7, COUNTING DOWN 7. THE BAG: old beans never soften, no matter what you do (page 95). Buy where beans sell fast. Shiny and whole, no dust in the bag. Sort them on a tray for the stone. 6. THE WATER: 2 to 3 inches over the beans. A bean above the water is not cooking. Keep a kettle HOT beside the pot and top up with hot water only. Cold water stops the simmer for 10 minutes every time (page 94). 5. AT THE START: half an onion, 3 garlic cloves, a spoon of manteca (it turns bean water into caldo de frijol, page 93), and the SALT. Salt early seasons the bean to the center. Acid is what hardens a bean, not salt (page 92). 4. THE TOMATO WAITS: nothing sour goes in while the beans are hard. Tomato into the charros at the end, lime at the table. The gray foam is harmless, skim it or leave it. 3. THE LID AND THE VISIT: lid tilted a finger's width. No stirring. Walk past every half hour, check the water line, add from the kettle. Epazote and a taste of the broth in the last half hour. 2. FIVE BEANS: one bean lies. Five beans from different parts of the pot, every one creamy with no chalk. Then fire OFF and everything stays in the broth. Never pour it out (page 94). 1. NEVER BOIL THEM: bring the pot up to a real boil ONCE, 5 minutes (10 for red kidney beans, that one the bag gets right). Then the lowest flame your stove holds. One lazy bubble every second or two. The pot MURMURS. 1.5 to 3 hours unsoaked, 1 to 2 soaked. Water at a murmur is almost as hot as boiling water; the boil never cooked them faster, it only beat them until the skins tore (page 93). THE OLLA DE BARRO, HONESTLY (pages 49-50): clay murmurs like nothing else, but old glazes often carry lead. Buy new and marked SIN PLOMO (lead free). An unmarked pot from the flea market or grandma's cupboard gets a hardware-store lead test first, or it holds flowers. A heavy steel pot or enameled Dutch oven makes beautiful beans with zero worry. THE PRESSURE COOKER (page 95): the olla express makes fine beans in 25 minutes. It cannot make the sound, and you cannot taste along the way. If your evenings are short, use it. THE HONEST WORDS (page 95): • Never softened after 4 hours → old beans. Not you. • Hard and you added tomato or salsa early → the acid is holding them. • Split and mushy → the boil was too violent, or too long. Mushy beans are refritos a day early. WHO PROFITS: a can holds about 1.5 cups in salty water. A 1 lb bag becomes 6 to 7 cups and costs about what one can costs. Four times the price for somebody else's pot of water, with no broth at all (page 99). The can is not evil. Keep a couple for the emergency shelf. Buy the bag for your life. THE HABIT (page 100): the pot goes on in the morning and murmurs while you live your day. Sunday in the broth. Monday refritos. Tuesday tostadas. Wednesday charros, tomato finally allowed in. Thursday the last of it blended into soup. Five dinners, one bag. And the pot with the brown ring baked inside, and the boil-over on the stove? That is the other half of my life: 🧼 Clean The Mexican Way → [link to cleaning channel] If half your pot was always mush and the other half stones, it was never because you were careless. Nobody ever showed you. Tell me in the comments: pinto house or black bean house? I read every one. CHAPTERS 0:00 Look in this pot with me 0:29 It was never you 0:43 The sound from my mother's kitchen 2:03 7: the bag, and why old beans never soften 3:09 6: the water, and the kettle beside it 4:08 5: onion, garlic, manteca, and SALT at the start 5:12 4: the tomato waits 6:05 3: the lid and the visit 7:04 2: five beans, and never pour out the broth 7:54 1: NEVER BOIL THEM, the murmur 10:19 The olla de barro, and the honest truth about clay 11:37 The pressure cooker, honestly 12:03 Honest words 12:33 Who profits: the can 13:25 The habit: one pot, five dinners #cookingtips #kitchenhacks #mexicancooking