14 May 2018

Another lunch, another sunset





I think I mentioned in a comment on a recent post that I was planning to cook some dried haricots rouges for lunch. Well, I did cook them — on Saturday. I cooked them in distilled water that I bought at the supermarket, because the hard local water (high in calcium) seems to harden the skins of dried beans in the cooking. They're better when the skins are tender.





We ate them for Sunday lunch with a big piece of poitrine de porc fumée — smoked pork belly — that I cut into four thick slices, browned in duck fat, and then braised in some bean broth. The pork was very lean and tender. The beans were tender too, so cooking them in distilled water (eau déminéralisée) seems to be the way to go.


For dessert, we each had another slice of that fresh strawberry pie with pastry cream. We had a few showers of rain in the afternoon, but nothing significant. Walt went out with Natasha. I noticed early in the evening that we were having another nice sunset, so I got out the camera. On the left is a shot of the sunset as seen through the leaves of our linden tree (tilleul).


Our downstairs bedroom window looks west and slightly south, so we get good sunset views. In the photo on the right, I think I see raining falling out on the horizon, or maybe just farther out in the vineyard, which extends more than two kilometers southwest from our house. That shower, if it was one, missed us, but we're supposed to get another half-inch of rain this afternoon.


15 comments:

  1. You don’t say if you soaked them overnight first and, if you did, was it in regular water or distilled water? Did you use baking soda?

    When I’m back from my virée en province, I’ll try again to cook red kidney beans with saucisse de Montbéliard. I’ll soak the beans overnight in distilled water with some added baking soda. The cooking liquid will be mostly red wine and some distilled water.

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    1. I did not soak the beans, I just rinsed them in tap water and then cooked them in distilled water, with no bicarbonate of soda or salt. I did put in an onion, a carrot, a bay leaf, some black pepper, some hot red pepper powder, and some powdered allspice. When the beans were very close to being ready, I needed to add water so I just added maybe half a liter of tap water — the skins were already tender. Then I added salt and cooked them for another half hour or so. In all, the cooking time was maybe 2½ hours. I was surprised the beans cooked so fast without the pre-soaking. I didn't put in any wine. Maybe wine is causing the tough skins. Can't you wait and put in the wine toward the end of the cooking time, after the bean skins are tender?

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    2. Have a read through this interesting article: Cooking Beans 101. It's strange, however, that this man says to salt the soaking water, especially if it's hard water, but he never mentions whether or not he puts salt, or when, in the cooking liquid. He does warn against putting acidic liquids like vinegar or wine in the cooking liquid before the beans are cooked a while and tenderized.

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    3. It’s interesting what you say about wine. Next time I cook red kidney beans I’ll wait to put the wine whith the beans. The problem is that being un vieil ivrogne I don’t put much water in the cooking liquid which is 90% red wine. Maybe I should steam the beans first and then cook them in wine with a litte water added?

      The link deosn’t work and there are dozens different Cooking Beans 101! Which one is it?

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    4. Here is the URL: https://christopherkimball.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/cooking-beans-101/

      I'm not sure why the link won't work in the comment. Trying again: link

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    5. This new link works, thank you. Interesting article. I’ll read it again when I’m ready to cook those old red beans that were so tough the last time and follow step by step what he says. I’ll use distilled water. I’ll keep you posted.

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  2. I remember following this last year, when you were experimenting with the best water solution for soaking or cooking the beans. I'm glad you've figured it out!

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    1. Maybe most people don't cook dried beans, or not very often. I grew up eating them in North Carolina. My mother cooked them, and in later years she said that we had that to eat because we couldn't afford much else. Besides, beans are good for you. Limas, Pintos, Navy Beans, Great Northerns, Pork & Beans... Not to mention String Beans and Pole Beans. I've always loved eating them. Now we have Black Beans, Chick Peas, Romano flat beans (I bought a big bag full of those at SuperU this morning), Pink Beans, and on and on.

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  3. Funny, I grew up eating beans in North Carolina and now I refuse to eat them :)
    My mother was always puttering around with her pressure cooker .. a clueless girl/ cook for California marries a young man from North Carolina and has to learn to cook beans ;)

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  4. How can pork belly be lean lol? I think you've conquered the bean skin problem now.

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    1. Surprising, no? French pork... Maybe I shouldn't call it "belly" — it's "breast" as in "chicken breast" — poitrine de porc in French. Here we can get lard gras (fatty) or lard maigre (lean). Lard means bacon. It's not rendered lard like in English.

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  5. Question: You always have such delicious sounding and large lunches, more like an American evening meal (dinner or supper). What do you have for your evening meal? Is it much smaller, more like an American lunch?

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    1. Lunch, not dinner, is the day's main meal for us. In the evening, we have a snack — cheese and bread, leftover soup or beans, nachos or a quesadilla, some salad, or pâté or ham on bread... whatever we have on hand or in the fridge, in small quantities. When we lived in California, we usually had a light workday lunch separately and then a bigger dinner together at home or in a restaurant in the evening. I don't know how we did that. Now neither of us sleeps comfortably on a really full stomach.

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  6. Thanks, Ken. If I have a big lunch, I want to nap all afternoon. I guess that's why some European countries have long lunch breaks.....eat big and nap for an hour or two.

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