i'm confused about the amount of black beans the recipe asks for! help!

in the recipe it says "1 cup dried black beans, soaked overnight and drained" which i interpret as 1 cup of dry beans that are then soaked over night which ends up being more like 3 cups of soaked beans. but in the video it looks like they're using more like 1 cup of soaked beans to make their patties. i'm confused! how many beans do i need! haha thank you!

jill
  • Posted by: jill
  • February 16, 2020
  • 1557 views
  • 6 Comments
Black Bean–Chipotle Falafel Burgers From Joe Yonan
Recipe question for: Black Bean–Chipotle Falafel Burgers From Joe Yonan

6 Comments

Nancy's C.
Nancy's C. August 22, 2020
When interpreting dried bean recipes just remember that once they're soaked then you would use them the same as if you're using canned beans. Put in as much as you like, according to preference.
 
Lori T.
Lori T. February 16, 2020
When recipe directions call for ingredients in this way, generally they mean you start with 1 cup of dried beans. Then you soak them. If they were intending you to measure already soaked beans, they would say 1 cup of previously soaked beans. It's kind of like a recipe that calls for 1 cup of walnuts, chopped. First you measure the walnut halves, then you chop them. That's different than 1 cup chopped walnuts, which are chopped before being measured.
 
jill
jill February 16, 2020
that's what i thought too but when watching the video it looks like they use significantly fewer than how many soaked beans 1 cup of dried beans would yield! or do black beans just not expand as much as other beans?
 
Lori T.
Lori T. February 17, 2020
How large your soaked beans appear depends on how large they were before they were dried, and how much water they have been able to take up. When you soak beans, all you are doing is rehydrating them. Cooked beans do get larger, because the starch molecules inside them expand. But as a rule, black beans are smaller than pintos or kidney beans- so after they soak they would also still be smaller.
 
jtg
jtg August 31, 2020
I have the same question Jill and still unclear. I made them last night and the mix was not nearly as orange as in the video and they disintegrated in the pan so wonder if the proportions are out with all those beans... So delicious but they
don't resemble a burger.
 
Lori T.
Lori T. August 31, 2020
The term sweet potato includes a lot of color variation, from pale yellow-white to the deep orange, and purple varieties. So the color of your mixture will vary, depending on the variety you used. Their texture when cooked varies as well, with some being more watery than others. And in the end, it's the water content of your mixture, from the soaked beans and the sweet potato, which is going to have an effect on your patty. If your mixture is holding on to more water, when it gets heated, there is a higher likelyhood that it's going to disintegrate in the pan. What you have to watch is the consistency and texture of your mixture before it gets cooked. The one cup of dry beans, after soaking, may vary in measurement of the final soaked beans- it depends on how dry the beans were to start with, how big they were, and how much water they soak up - just like your sweet potato is going to vary on moisture content. The sweet potato is more likely to be high moisture if it is a new crop, or one of the lighter yellow varieties. That's why you are supposed to microwave it, rather than boil it to cook, as well. I usually actually dry soaked beans on a clean towel, just to help control this. It can be helpful to cook a small test burger to check on how it is going to handle the heat. If you mixture shows it will lose shape- you then know you need to control moisture in the mix, a binder to help keep it hanging together. In that case, I find one or two tablespoons of either cornstarch or potato starch will do the job very nicely, without changing the flavor profile. The mixture should feel almost like hamburger, before you cook it. If you don't want to use corn or potato starch, you can also use egg, oat flour, or even flour. It just depends on your diet preferences and limitations, which you choose. The sweet potato can act as the sole binder, but sometimes depending on the variety, it just needs a bit of help.
 
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