Beans and Tomatoes
I just received my Gigante beans from Greece. I want to try this recipe, but is adding the tomatoes with the beans "don't do it" mantra just a wives tale similar to the "don't salt your beans before cooking", "don't wash your mushrooms" and "never scrub your cast iron pan"?
http://www.alexandracooks.com/2015/01/15/slow-cooker-gigante-beans-tomatoes-pancetta/
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I don't know if this was such a success because of the long cooking time in the slow cooker or because the tomatoes were 14 ounces to 4 cups of stock.
R
I'm going to make Merrill's Brothy Garlicky beans with the other 8 ounces of beans. I'll put the tomatoes in at the end as the recipe calls for and see if there's a difference.
Either way, I highly recommend these wonderful beans and recipe.
Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking," under the subtitle, "Cooking Legumes," notes:
Cell wall hemicelluloses are more soluble in alkaline conditions, and seeds, like stems and leaves, will soften more readily for this reason than they would in acidic water. Veteran chili makers have probably noticed this effect when they put partially cooked beans into chili sauce: the beans simply do not get any softer, no matter how long the acidic sauce is simmered (the same thing happened with baked beans; in this case, calcium ions in the acidic molasses also complex with the cell wall materials and make them even less soluble).
(From the 1984 Collier edition, page 262.)
McGee goes on to observe that this property can be put to good use in the situation where the beans are cooked perfectly, but need to be kept warm. If the environment is made acid, they will not turn to mush.
The Rancho Gordo site agrees: "If you want to add tomatoes or acids like lime or vinegar, wait until the beans are cooked through." http://www.ranchogordo.com/pages/cooking-basic-beans-in-the-rancho-gordo-manner
I suspect that the actual ingredients (age of beans + level of acidity in the tomatoes -- and canned tomatoes vary quite a bit in this regard) and ratio of beans to tomatoes to water (the alkalinity of which could vary from place to place, also affecting the effect of the acidity of the tomatoes), and one's tolerance for slightly crunchy cooked beans all figure into the equation.
If I had a bag of special beans from Greece, not easily replaced, I would not take the chance, given the unknowns involved in each of those variables. ;o)
To test this, Cooks Illustrated cooked white beans in different water+vinegar mixtures at different pH levels from 3 (strongly acidic) to 9 (mildly alkaline). Here's what they found:
"The beans cooked at a pH of 3 . . . remained crunchy and tough-skinned despite being allowed to cook 30 minutes longer than the other three batches. The beans cooked at pHs of 5, 7, and 9 showed few differences, although the 9 pH batch finished a few minutes ahead of the 7 pH batch and about 20 minutes ahead of the 5 pH batch."
https://christopherkimball.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/cooking-beans-101/
Canned tomatoes have a pH of around 3.5 to 4.5, so if the cooking liquid was entirely or mostly tomatoes or also contained large amounts of vinegar or other strongly acidic ingredients, there might be a problem.
But the cooking liquid in the recipe Susan cited is mostly stock or water, whose pH is (generally) close to neutral. The beans should soften, although it might take a bit longer than if they were cooked in a non-acidic liquid.
It is not an old wives' tale. It is absolutely sound advice. ;o)
Here's one person's voice on this. If I were using a local, easy to find bean, I would just experiment, but these were sent to me from Greece.
http://www.chowhound.com/post/dried-beans-chili-soak-cook-adding-881155