Most People Soak Pinto Beans Wrong! Mexican Mother's Old Secrets So They're Never Hard or Gassy

#pintobeans #mexicanfood #frijoles 📖 Page 92 of La Cocina de Bertha is where I corrected my mother, with her permission: salt never hardened a bean. Two tablespoons in the overnight soak, one more in the olla, every measure written down: https://berthascookbook.com Half the pot split open with the skins floating like paper, the other half pebbles at the bottom. It was never you, mija, and it was never the four hours. It was the night before. Most people soak pinto beans in plain water, and that is the whole mistake. HONEST FIRST: my mother never soaked a bean in her life (page 91: "the bean knows how to swim"). My grandmother, in the same house, soaked every bean she ever cooked. Tonight you get my grandmother's bowl and my mother's pot. ⭐ THE 5, COUNTING DOWN 5. OLD BEANS: a bean keeps drying on the shelf and after a year or two it never softens (p.32, p.90). On a plate: good pintos are tan, speckled, shiny; old ones dusty, faded, cracked. Buy where beans sell fast. Sort for the stone. 4. THE ROLLING BOIL tears the skins before the middles are cooked (p.94). The pot wants a murmur, lid tilted. And ACID WAITS: tomato, lime, vinegar, salsa go in after the beans are soft (p.92). The old cooks blamed the salt for what the tomato did. 3. HARD WATER: white crust in the kettle = minerals holding the bean skin tight (p.90). Filtered water, OR ¼ teaspoon bicarbonato (baking soda) per pound in the SOAK only, never in the pot, never more. Too much = soap. Soft water: skip it. 2. THE SOAK WATER GOES DOWN THE DRAIN: the cloudy morning water holds the sugars your body cannot break down. Never cook beans in it (the can does). Then a full minute under cold running water. HONEST: the soak poured away removes about a quarter of those sugars; cooking to creamy removes more; a belly that eats beans often stops complaining. Together, MOST of the trouble. Not all. Nothing removes all of it. 1. THE SALT GOES IN THE SOAK: the bean skin is held tight by calcium and magnesium; overnight in salt water the sodium takes their place, the skin loosens, water enters evenly, and the bean does not burst. Whole beans, creamy centers. The salt stays in the skin; the rinse takes the rest. ⭐ THE SOAK: 1 lb pintos sorted and rinsed · about 3 quarts cold water, 3 inches over · 2 tablespoons salt stirred in · ¼ tsp baking soda only if your water is hard · 8 hours to a full day on the counter. Morning: water down the drain, 1 full minute under the tap. ⭐ THE POT, FRIJOLES DE LA OLLA (p.92): soaked beans, fresh cold water 2 to 3 inches over · ½ white onion whole · 3 garlic cloves whole · 1 generous tablespoon manteca · 1 tablespoon salt AT THE START (p.92: salt never hardened a bean). Real boil 5 minutes (10 for red kidney beans; a slow cooker on low never gets hot enough for them), then the murmur, lid tilted. The gray foam is not the gas (p.94). 1 to 2 hours. Top up with HOT water only. Last 30 minutes: epazote, or a bay leaf (p.93). DONE = five beans in a row creamy to the center (p.94). Fire off, everything stays in the broth. HONEST WORDS: never softened → old beans (p.95). Mush → the pot rolled; tomorrow they are refritos. Soap → the pinch was a spoon. Thin broth → under-salted, under-fatted, or too much water. Salty beans → you cooked them in the soak water. WHO PROFITS: a pound of dry pintos (~$1.20) makes six cups, which is four cans (~$3.50 at my Walmart), three times the price for beans that slept in their own water. There is no money in a woman who puts a bowl of beans to bed. THE HABIT: Saturday night the beans go in the salt water, Sunday the pot. Sunday de la olla, Monday refritos, Wednesday the torta, Friday tostadas (p.89). The rest freezes in its broth. And the olla afterward, with the brown line baked at the waterline? That is the other half of my life: 🧼 Clean The Mexican Way →    / @berthacleanhome   Nobody ever showed you the bowl. Tell me in the comments: what day was bean day in your mother's house, and what goes on top, onion, queso fresco, or salsa? I read every one. CHAPTERS 0:00 Mush and gravel in the same spoonful 0:25 It was never you, it was the night before 0:44 Five things the old cooks did to the bowl 1:12 My mother never soaked, my grandmother always did 2:08 5. Old beans, and where to buy them 3:23 4. The rolling boil and the tomato 4:37 3. Hard water and the pinch of bicarbonato 5:39 2. The soak water goes down the drain 7:28 1. The salt goes in the soak 8:21 Why the salt soak keeps every bean whole 9:14 The measure for the bowl 9:55 My mother's pot: frijoles de la olla 10:52 The boil, the murmur, the foam 11:44 Epazote and the five-bean test 12:22 The bowl 12:42 The honest words 13:27 Who profits: the can 14:14 The habit: beans to bed on Saturday 14:53 What I would ask of you #mexicancooking #pintobeansrecipe #frijolesdelaolla