3 precious secrets to cook legumes well and in a short time

Cooking legumes is an art and our grandmothers knew something about it. They could devote more attention to cooking and keep the terracotta pan on the fire for hours, today this is more difficult. Here are 3 precious secrets to cook legumes well and in a short time.

Soak them

There are 2 reasons for soaking legumes. Especially those with a more stubborn cooking, such as i beans and chickpeas, but also lentils.

The first reason is that by soaking overnight, any toxic substances that are on legumes, such as pesticides, herbicides, etc. are eliminated. So we will have a safe product after soaking, which we will only have to rinse, before putting it in the pot.

The second reason is that by soaking the legumes … they get soaked! This is useful for dried legumes. In fact, the legume has no water inside and soaking it overnight absorbs a little. It becomes softer and cooking times are shortened.

Why salt the soaking water. 3 precious secrets to cook legumes well and in a short time

This is useful when legumes are left to soak for a long time, such as beans. These absorb the water and their interior swells, with the risk then during cooking that the bean will split. For this reason, a little salt is added to the soaking water, so that the absorbed water decreases a little, and the bean remains intact during cooking.

Why add a little baking soda to cooking

Better to add a pinch of baking soda to the cooking water if we want the beans to cook better. In fact, the tap waters all have a certain percentage of limestone. Limestone, composed of calcium and magnesium, has the ability to strengthen the structure of the bean. In this way, even after hours of cooking we will have the beans well cooked. By adding bicarbonate instead, the action of calcium on the beans is canceled and they can cook perfectly.

Here are explained 3 precious secrets to cook legumes well and in a short time.

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