Are you worried about your kidney beans splitting? Do you think split beans are bad? These questions arise in your mind because you want your salad to look right or not to lose the nutritive value. Sometimes, soaking kidney beans in water or boiling results in losing their nutritive values. Although split beans are not bad and have the same characteristics as the whole, you would like your salad to have the original shape and color of the kidney beans.
In this article, we will discuss why split beans are not bad and how we can treat beans so that they do not split during cooking or boiling.
Reasons of Why Beans Split
If you cook beans when it is in a dry state, you must have found them to crack and split. This is because the inside coating of the beans is softer and rehydrate faster than the outside. As the interior soaks water and rehydrate, it expands and comes out by tearing the skin. If you soak the beans for a few hours before cook, you can avoid split beans.
On soaking the beans, water enters slowly by the thick exterior wall and then into the interior just as it would do during germination. The interior seed of the bean absorbs water and increases in size. Once you boil the swollen beans, the beans become evenly cooked. However, you should not worry about split kidney beans, as they are not poisonous.
Beans look attractive in a dish if they have the right shape and color. You do not want your dish to look clumsy when you serve. The look of a dish raises the appetite. Therefore, we would like to give the process of cooking kidney beans with no splits.
How Can You Cook Perfect Beans?
To avoid dried beans ending up from splitting, the following steps work well.
1. Soaking the Beans
After washing the dried beans thoroughly with water, soak them for a couple of hours and preferably overnight. Let the rehydration process go on naturally so that water enters the beans. The beans are seeds and soaking will require less time to cook. In this process, the exterior and interior side of the beans expand at equal speed, requiring no cracking of the outer thick coat as the inner portion swells.
No matter how big-sized kidney beans are no split beans are likely to be the case.
2. Add Salt to the Water Used for Soaking and Cooking
For cooking beans, you need to add salt to taste your, anyway. The perfect way to avoid splitting beans is by adding salt to the water you soak and boil. Just a pinch of salt will do to season it and give it an extra taste. There is a scientific reason for this process. As the salt is soluble, some of the sodium ions enter the beans and exchange places with the magnesium and calcium ions. This loosens the skin of the beans and helps penetration of water. The displacement of ions softens the surface of the skin and keeps it intact instead of cracking. Therefore, the use of salt water helps to avoid the splitting of beans both while soaking beans and cooking.
The salting of beans makes beans cook quicker, the belief that salt delays and hampers cooking no longer holds.
3. Try to Use Freshly Dried Beans
Dried beans like any other seeds also have a shelf life. You know seeds do not germinate when left in unfavorable conditions for a long time. Experience of homemaker shows that beans harvested and dried cooks with no splitting than beans stored for a year or more. Long storage makes the beans even drier and increases the splitting process.
To make your kidney beans dish soft and tasty, try to use fresh dried beans and not use the packet stored for years. That is one of the tricks to avoid split beans.
4. Do Not Intense Boiling of Beans
Use your soft hands when you deal with beans and want to avoid split beans. Do not throw the bag of beans in the cupboard harshly. The seeds are live and may undergo injury. When you boil, do not do so vigorously with intense heat. Neither do you need to stir the beans often while boiling?
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Conclusion
A combination of the above practices is a great way to avoid the splitting of beans. Splitting of kidney, mung, and garbanzo beans all split when you treat them the way they dislike. Beans are dry products that it becomes have to undergo rehydration before soft and tender. The rehydration process works better if you soak the beans with a bit of salt before cooking in slightly salted water.
Split beans are not bad but they spoil the appearance of a dish by becoming messy. The look of the food builds your appetite. Therefore, follow the simple tips of treating beans when you friends and families around. I am sure with those easy tips you can be a superb cook and plan your parties more confidently.
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