FOR years, there was a nearly insurmountable barrier between me and a truly excellent pot of beans: the seemingly simple act of soaking the beans, a requirement of nearly every recipe I read.
Not that this is hard, but it does require forethought. Plus there was never enough room in my refrigerator to fit a large bowl of the beans to soak overnight.
Instead I relied on canned beans, deluding myself into thinking that they were just as good as homemade. But in reality they were far from ideal, too mushy and bland.
But then I read a recipe that made me reassess everything. It was for Mexican pinto beans that were not soaked, but simply tossed into a pot with vegetables and seasonings and simmered for three hours.
And there was no overly cautious warning about waiting for the beans to cook through before adding the salt, common advice in many American bean recipes. (With this recipe, the beans were seasoned at the beginning.)
The resulting beans were firm-textured yet silky, with a deep earthy flavor enhanced by the herbs and aromatics with which they simmered.
The next time I craved beans, I walked right past the canned-goods section in the supermarket and headed straight for a package of dried Great Northern beans. I was imagining a meaty, cold-weather stew laden with herbs and garlic, so I also picked up some sweet Italian sausages and hearty sprigs of rosemary.
I caramelized the sausages first, sautéing the vegetables with cumin and tomato paste in the drippings, and then added the beans and plenty of water, simmering them until the house was fragrant and the windows fogged up.
The stew was deeply flavored and complex, and the beans were tender and nuanced. Now that I know I no longer have to soak them, I suspect beans will be on the menu at my house all winter long.
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