Ten reasons to hail the legume

There is wide speculation at the moment about the legume and its health benefits in some of the food diets and food trends. And legumes have been given a bit of a boot out when it comes to what is the healthy food pyramid. I am here to say that the legume is one of the most important aspects in our whole food diet and I’m giving you 10 tips as to why your diet and pantry should include these humble ancient beans.

Ten reasons to hail the legume

Eating like our ancient fore-fathers has never reigned truer than including the legume. Cultivation, preparation and consumption of legumes is evident from the royal tombs of ancient Egypt to the classical Greece of Homer’s Iliad and even in the Old Testament. The use of legumes as a basic dietary staple can be traced back more than 20,000 years in some Eastern cultures, while the common bean, the lima bean and the pinta, were being cultivated for the first time in the very earliest Mexican and Peruvian civilisations more than 5,000 years ago, being popular in both the Aztec and Inca cultures.

I am a huge fan of keeping legumes stocked in the pantry, and any sort of legume, beans and peas in both the tinned and dry varieties. Legumes, are often referred to as ‘pulses’, and they are all forms of beans and peas coming from the Leguminosae family. The Leguminous plants yield seeds of variable sizes, shapes and colours within a pod and have huge nutritional and health benefits. Some of the more popular legumes and beans include chickpeas, broad bean, field pea, lentils, mungbean, azuki bean, navy bean, butter beans, haricot (navy) beans, cannellini beans, red kidney beans, broad beans, black-eyed beans, soybeans, mung beans, lentils, and split peas. The legume is fundamentally a meal in itself although a couple of tips when cooking and using the beans.

For your dried varieties, usually soaking is required except for split peas and lentils and generally overnight in room temperature water is best, changing the water to fresh just before boiling. This soaking rehydrates the bean making it easier to cook them. Before soaking, pick through the beans, discarding any discoloured or shrivelled beans and depending on how much time you have there are two soaking methods to produce the perfectly cooked bean.

Option 1, In a bowl cover 1 cup of dried beans with 5 cups of water. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Option 2, In a stockpot, bring 1 cup of dried beans and 5 cups of water to a boil. Cover and set aside and let beans soak for 1 to 4 hours at room temperature.

Cooking the legumes is usually done in simmering unsalted water salting the water produces a tough outer skin, although you can flavour the water with onions, spices and bay leaves. Depending on the bean usually 20 – 30 minutes is required to achieve a well-cooked bean, to test simply squash the bean between your fingers and if it squashes easily then they are ready for the draining. Once the water comes to the boil I will quite often boil for 3-5 minutes, cover and let them stand for one hour, then discarding the soaking water, I then rinse and cover with new water and cook as directed.

It is best to skim any scum that rises to the surface of the boiling water as this is just the impurities from the beans. This aids in the digestion of the bean.

Cooked beans can then be used for salads, purees curries and dips, for soups and casseroles vegan pates’ and bulking out meat dishes, legumes are the perfect addition when the weather chills up, quite often soaking is always required and then the beans are added to the soup liquid to simmer until cooked through.

If you are using a variety of different beans then you may need to cook them separately and then add them to your dish.

Beans need flavour! Add salt or acidic ingredients, such as vinegar, tomatoes or juice, near the end of the cooking time, when the beans are just tender. If these ingredients are added too early, they can make the beans tough and slow the cooking process. Beans are done when they can be easily mashed between two fingers or with a fork. To freeze cooked beans for later use, immerse them in cold water until cool, then drain well and freeze. Cooked beans freeze very well making them a great sand by as you can then just tip them into your dishes when needed if you don’t have tinned on hand. 1 cup of dried beans will give you about 2- 2 ½ cups of cooked beans. Or 1 x 400g tin of cooked beans will give you about 1 ½ cups of cooked drained beans.

Always drain and rinse tinned beans.

Beans love flavour so don’t be shy to season them with spices, dressings, sauces, garlic, herbs and olive oil after they are cooked depending on your dish.

They are very inexpensive and a small amount yield a lot usually 1 cup of dry beans will yield 2 ½ cups of cooked beans. So leap for the legumes, save money, increase your fibre and protein and discover why they are an amazing kitchen staple world-wide.

John

Hello Dominique,

Firstly, thank you for the way that you presented the “Cooking School”.

Your skills and passion for food certainly came across in the delivery and left us all in awe of what we ended up creating.

The kitchen will never be safe from me again.

Kind regards

John

Rosemary Jones – Celebrity Chef Coordinator – Hampton High Country Food and Arts Festival Committee

Dear Dom,

Re : HAMPTON HIGH COUNTRY FOOD AND ARTS FESTIVAL 2011

The Hampton High Country Food and Arts Festival organizing committee would like to thank you for your support and assistance generously given to our 9th – 2011 Festival.

Once again, on a gorgeous May day, all of the visitors to our Festival were treated to a veritable feast of culinary inspirational delights, entertainment, local seasonal produce and provisions, great music, wonderful visual arts, delicious food and wine.

Your professional demonstrations really captured the imagination and taste buds of the crowds and I am sure you enjoyed meeting lots of your many fans. Thanks also for your endorsement and showcasing the excellent local produce of the region. All of the group who participated in Saturday’s Masterclass are still enthusing about what a wonderful, educational and enjoyable experience it was and are looking forward to receiving more information from you of your proposed tours to Sicily next year.

Once again, thanks Dom, your input to our 2011 Festival was just magic and we would love to have you back again.

very best wishes

Rosemary Jones,

Celebrity Chef Coordinator,

Hampton High Country Food and Arts Festival Committee

Mark Dring – National Account Manager – Goodman Fielder Baking

Hi Dom,

We should be the ones thanking you. The stand and the feedback we received from retailers and Metcash certainly exceeded our expectations.

I certainly hope we get the opportunity to work with you again in the future,

Thanks again.

Mark Dring

National Account Manager

Goodman Fielder Baking

Susan Teerds Chief Executive Officer, Kids Safe Queensland

Dear Dominique

Thank you for your support of the inaugural Kidsafe Day Cook-off in King George Square. The cook-off was hot and competitive but also so much fun and the food was delicious. The feedback from the teams was that they all had a ball and thought the challenges and the ingredients were terrific. Mostly they were very impressed with your commentary and participation.

We are determined to prevent terrible injury, injury deaths and disability to kids through community awareness and education and the cook-off certainly created an awareness that was unprecedented. Thank you for being a part of this amazing day.

You have helped us to raise awareness of this important work – keeping kids out of hospital!

I extend my sincere appreciation to you for all that you did for Kidsafe and for me.

Kind regards

Susan Teerds

Chief Executive Officer, Kids Safe Queensland

Corina (Sunshine Coast Ginger Festival 2012)

Hi Dominique

Here’s another story for your files from the Sunshine Coast Daily. It was a great Festival and the crowd numbers were really good. Your demonstrations certainly added to the excitement over the three days and thank you for joining us Dominique. We’re looking forward to working with you again!

Kind regards,
Corina (Sunshine Coast Ginger Festival 2012)

Sally and the Liquid Ideas Team

On behalf of Ronni and OzHarvest we want to thank you all for the amazing job you did last night at the CEO CookOff.

It was OzHarvest’s biggest fundraiser ever, thanks to Qantas and the 120 CEOs, and we raised close to $1 million dollars – that means one million meals will now be served to those in need.

We hope to see you again in 2013 unless Ronni ropes you into another event later this year….

Cheers,

Sally and the Liquid Ideas Team

Jenny, Martin, Emily and Samuel Barrett

Hi Dominique

Thank you so much for such a lovely time last Saturday. We all had a great time and have been cooking lots trying out our new talents, some needs a little more work than others! I have even been looking at pasta makers.

Can you please send me in instructions for making the pizza bases and sauce for the topping.

Sorry we had to rush off to the airport, we did not realise that the day would go for that long as we know you are a very busy lady. If we had not had the plane to catch we might have been there a lot longer so just as well!

Thank you once again and just when you have a moment can you send through the recipe

Jenny, Martin, Emily and Samuel Barrett x

Michele Moloney

Dear Dominique

Thank you again for a wonderfully insightful night in Wagga Wagga, I can’t wait to get to Sicily to continue the learning curve.The flavours were fantastic.

As we discussed, my husband and I arrive in Palermo in March, and would be most grateful for whatever suggestions/contacts you have time to share with us. We have 3 nights at the Hotel Letizia booked, after which we intend to simply follow our noses. Our next fixed point is Florence, so who knows where we may end up? Hence any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Looking forward to hearing from you, and being able to show you more of our part of the world when next you can get here, Best wishes,

Michele Moloney

Emma Bergmeier

This was a email sent to Food I am

Hi Tania

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the cooking school on Monday with Dominique. I felt like I was in my element.

I love food and cooking and I just think you’ve done a great job in starting this sort of thing in Wagga! You’ve done well to coordinate it all. Everything was so organised and ran so smoothly. Thankyou for being so friendly and enthusiastic – it makes a huge difference and I hope you go really well with your business. I can’t wait to choose another class to do later in the year.

I’m glad I bought Dominique’s recipe book. I made the meatballs tonight for dinner. They were simple to make and absolutely delicious. This weekend, I’m planning on making the hazelnut tart we made during the class. I’m just wondering where I can get some amaretti biscuits from?

Kindest Regards

Emma Bergmeier