In the summer, I’m always looking for foods that are filling but not hot and not heavy, and cool bean salads fit the bill nicely. After cooking the beans and letting them cool in their broth, I strain them and toss them with all kinds of summertime ingredients: basil and tomatoes from my garden; corn and chiles from the farmers’ market; cooling yogurt and crunchy cucumbers from the fridge. The salads I make taste vibrant and light, but they have a meaty, substantial bite. I like these salads for a light lunch along with some bread—crusty French or Italian with the white bean salad, warmed tortillas with the black beans, and pita or naan with the chickpea salad.

从干豆开始，以获得最佳的味道和质地

Look, you could easily make these salads by opening a can or two of beans and mixing them with the seasonings and dressings in the recipes. I’ll even give you a hint: 1 cup dried beans gives you 2-1/2 to 3 cups cooked beans. But with the exception of chickpeas, which actually take well to canning, most beans suffer, becoming quite mushy, when canned.

当您使用豆类罐头时，您还错过了为沙拉增添额外风味的机会。烹饪干豆时在锅中包括一些芳香蔬菜和调味料是一个机会，可以在最后一道菜中增加深度和特征。如果您确实使用豆类罐头，请尝试一些品牌，看看您最喜欢哪种品牌；我对有机的印象最深刻。请记住，在使用之前，请始终冲洗豆类。

每天煮干豆以获得最佳效果。大多数豆类改善风味和质地时有限公司oked a day in advance. If you plan to hold them for a day or so, refrigerate the beans once they’ve cooled. If kept at room temperature for too long, beans can sour and ferment.

浸泡还是不浸泡？

烹饪前浸泡干豆有两个好处：最浸泡的豆类烹饪更快 - 更少一个小时。而且，如果将浸泡水倒出，则豆类将更容易消化，因为您要浸出并倒出引起汽油的寡糖。

If you are not like me and are good at planning ahead, by all means cover the beans in cold water and soak them for as little as four hours or as long as eight (the overnight in the direction “soak the beans overnight”). Drain and rinse the beans before cooking them.

还有一个quick-soaking方法。涵盖了beans with water and bring them to a boil. Boil for a few minutes and then let them soak for an hour off the heat, drain, and then add fresh water and continue cooking. If you’re concerned about the digestibility of beans—they affect some people more than others—then you may want to try quick-soaking. But if you think a quick soak will save you time during cooking, then don’t bother. By the time you’ve boiled and soaked the beans, you could have cooked them that extra hour already.

如果您决定快速浸泡，这里有一种节省时间的方法。豆子浸泡了几乎整整一个小时后，将充满水的柚木煮沸。排出浸泡水后，用热水覆盖豆子，让您在烹饪时起步。

The fresher the bean, the faster it will cook。许多人认为干豆永远持续下去。实际上，即使经过数小时的烹饪，也很旧的豆子和在炎热，潮湿的条件下存放的豆子也可能永远不会变软。然而，几乎不可能告诉干豆子的时代。如果您有一个良好的全食品市场，可以很快通过豆子，那么您可以在那里购买它们。小型种植者的邮件可获得精品店和传家宝豆。它们不可避免地比超市豆更新鲜，而且很少需要在合理的时间内浸泡。

A pressure cooker is another option.高压锅可以快速，精美地煮豆子，使它们的质量几乎柔滑。仔细遵循制造商的指示，因为诸如漂浮的豆皮之类的碎屑可以堵塞设备。另外，使用高压锅使得在完成豆时很难衡量。对于您希望豆类嫩而整体的豆类沙拉，请在压力锅中煮熟的一侧，然后在需要时经常完成烹饪。

是什么可以使豆子变硬：神话和事实

食品科学家Shirley Corriher，精心烹饪撰稿人，最近写了有关该杂志的Bean Cookery的文章。在文章中，她不仅拒绝漫长而广泛的信念，即在烹饪开始时添加的盐可以增强豆子，而且她也建议恰恰相反，即即使在浸泡过程中腌制豆子，也会使它们更加柔和。由于我相信盐的风味好处，因此我都赞成她的建议。我已经尝试过，这是真的。

在烹饪过程中避免添加西红柿或其他酸性成分。亚搏手机版官方番茄酱，葡萄酒，柠檬汁和醋可以防止豆内部的淀粉肿胀并变软。虽然我将许多此类成分添加到我的豆类沙拉中，但直到豆子亚搏手机版官方完全煮熟和柔软之前，它们才进入。

And speaking of acidic ingredients: I don’t dress my cooked beans until the day I serve the salad. Though the beans need some time to absorb the flavor from the dressing, too much time in contact with the acidic ingredients—and this includes yogurt—will make the beans mushy.

用充满活力的豆照亮豆子

Beans are eaten around the world with all kinds of flavorings and accompaniments. That broad thought was my guide as I developed these robustly flavored salads. Black beans, for example, seemed well-suited to a Mexican style salad, while the flavors of the Mediterranean—haricots verts, anchovies, basil, thyme, and fruity olive oil—enhance the creamy white beans. I chose Indian flavors—cumin, ginger, yogurt, cilantro—for the chickpea salad because chickpeas are used heavily in Indian cooking. I easily could have gone a Middle Eastern route, too—garlic, parsley, olive oil, and tangy feta, for example.

This brings me to my final thought, for the moment anyway, about summertime and beans: consider experimenting with a pot of cooked beans to create your own cool salads. One way to start is to substitute cooked beans for pasta in your favorite pasta salads. Like pasta, beans are fairly neutral in flavor and will take on the flavor of the dressing and the other ingredients in the salad. Or increase the amount of dressing for your favorite green or composed salad to accommodate a smattering of cooked beans; I guarantee you’ll find the dish more satisfying.