Baked beans or hummus, Indian dal or Mexican frijoles, mushy peas or chilli con carne - all these make good use of legumes, a group of plant foods that have been important ingredients for thousands of years in almost every cuisine around the world. Charmian Smith explores peas, beans and lentils.
Lentils are said to be one of the oldest cultivated plants, dating back 9000 or 10,000 years, and were probably eaten in their wild forms by hunters and gatherers before that. Other legumes also came into cultivation around the world in prehistoric times.
Three yummy recipes below
And a side benefit for ancient - and modern - farmers and gardeners is that legume plants, such as peas and beans, boost soil fertility by making nitrogen available to other plants.
But apart from all that, pulses, the edible dried seeds of legumes which include lentils, peas and beans, are among the healthiest foods, full of fibre, vitamins, minerals, protein, and heart-friendly phytonutrients, mostly low in fat and with a low glycemic index.
They fill you up but take a while to digest, which means you feel full for longer, so they are a useful food for those trying to lose weight and for those with diabetes.
But besides that, they can taste great, cost little and there's a variety of flavour and texture. Some are powdery, some can be thick and viscous and some creamy. Some taste earthy, others are light and absorb the flavours of whatever you put with them.
You can cook them so they retain their shape and crispness or until they are mushy, soupy and comforting.
Because legumes are high in protein they are a good food for vegetarians. However, they do not contain all the essential amino acids, so whether by accident or design, most cuisines have evolved dishes that combine legumes and grains, which makes for a balanced protein combination.
Ours is probably baked beans on toast; in Mexico, frijoles (beans) with tortillas; in Italy, peas and rice or mashed beans with bread; in the Middle East, hummus (made from chickpeas) and bread, or mujara, a dish of lentils and rice; in China, rice with soy products like tofu.
Omnivores can include meat or dairy with legumes. In Western cuisines, pork was often used, a ham hock or piece of bacon cooked with pease porridge (mushy peas) in Britain, chorizo with chickpeas in Spain, cassoulet with meat and beans in France, Boston baked beans with pork or bacon, and chilli con carne, beef with kidney beans in the United States.
Some legumes are eaten fresh as vegetables such as broad beans, runner and string beans, peas, even soy beans, which are known as endame.
Health
The old children's saying ''Beans, beans, the musical fruit/The more you eat, the more you toot'' refers to the reputation some beans, especially soy, haricot and lima beans, have for causing flatulence.
Dr Bernard Venn, of the department of human nutrition at the University of Otago, says this is caused by the oligosaccharides, or dietary fibre which is undigested, and are fermented by bacteria in the gut.
''If you go from zero beans to a large bean meal without adaptation, then you could suffer some gastrointestinal distress, but if you introduce beans into your diet slowly, then your microflora in your gut will get used to them.
''By feeding the good bacteria and keeping the gut healthy, we are helping ensure we don't get unhealthy bacteria in there. It's also good for transit time for regularity and softer stools and the general comfort in passing stools,'' he said.
Other remedies include soaking dried beans and discarding the soaking water, long slow cooking, or adding certain spices such as cumin, coriander or hing (asafoetida, a spice used in Indian cooking), that are said to help prevent flatulence.
Fibre is said to help prevent colorectal cancer and is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
''Legumes certainly have some admirable qualities. They are good in an obesogenic world because they are low-energy dense. You can eat a substantial amount of them and they will fill you up. They are satiating.''
''Another benefit of legumes is they have a low glycemic impact so the carbohydrate in the legumes is really absorbed quite slowly. That is a good thing for everyone, but particularly for people with diabetes or on their way to diabetes.''
However, when legumes are ground into flour, such as soy flour, chickpea flour (gram), or mung bean flour used in cellophane noodles, they lose their low GI.
''As far as cholesterol goes, legumes may have a small cholesterol-lowering benefit themselves, but it's really the displacement of other foods that is a major benefit.
"If you use beans and grains as your protein sources instead of fatty meat, then the elimination of the fatty meat is going to give you the benefit,'' he said.
''But even with legumes, the old advice applies - eat a variety of foods. Don't limit yourself to one variety of bean, such as soybean and its products such as tofu.''
Pulses have no gluten so are a useful source of healthy carbohydrate for those on gluten-free diets.
Cooking pulses
Pulses are dried seeds of legumes, and although they are not difficult to cook, some of them need to be soaked first and cooked for a long time.
Others, like lentils, don't need soaking and are relatively fast to cook - about 20 minutes will do.
There are several ways to cook legumes - in a pot on the stove, in the oven, in a pressure cooker, or in a slow cooker. Or you can conveniently buy many types canned which only need to be drained and rinsed before using.
However, these may be high in salt, and they may be soft, which is fine for a salad but if you want to cook them in a stew, they may disintegrate.
Apart from lentils, it's best to soak dried pulses before cooking as this reduces cooking time. It leaches out some of the oligosaccharides that can contribute to wind, but also some of the other nutrients.
They can be soaked overnight in cold water, but three or four hours will do. If you are in a hurry you can pour boiling water over the pulses and soak for 30 minutes to an hour. When the pulses have swelled, drain and discard the cooking water. Cook by one of the methods below.
Stove-top method
Put the soaked pulses into a pot and cover well with fresh water. Bring to the boil, then simmer until soft.
Lentils will take 15-25 minutes, chickpeas 45 minutes to one hour and soy or kidney beans up to an hour and a-half.
It's recommended not to add salt until the beans are nearly cooked as it may delay softening. If pulses have been heat-treated, they will take longer to cook.
You can use the cooking water as stock - this is especially nice if you have added onion or other flavourings.
Soaked beans can also be cooked in the oven. There's a famous Tuscan soup, fagioli al fiasco, which farmers would leave to cook slowly overnight beside the fire: heat sage or rosemary and garlic in a little olive oil, add soaked and drained cannellini beans and water or stock and cook very gently for 3-4 hours.
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, freshly ground black pepper and crusty bread.
Pressure cooker
I have to admit that the pressure cooker is my favourite way of cooking pulses as it's relatively fast and I'm not always organised enough to do them in a slow cooker.
I can decide late in the afternoon to have chickpeas for dinner, soak them in boiling water for 30 minutes, then pressure-cook them for 15 or 20 minutes and they are ready to serve or add to a dish.
Put the soaked and rinsed pulses in the pressure cooker, cover with about 5cm of water and cook on high pressure. When it comes up to pressure and starts to hiss, turn the heat down so it hisses gently and start to time the cooking.
When the time is up, turn off the heat and allow the pressure to reduce gradually.
If in a hurry, add four minutes to the cooking time and reduce the pressure fast by putting the pot in the sink and running cold water over it.
Slow cooker
Joan Bishop, ODT food columnist and author of the best-selling New Zealand crockpot and slow-cooker cookbook, prefers to cook pulses in a slow cooker.
They don't need soaking first, and Harold McGee, in his encyclopaedic On Food and Cooking, says prolonged cooking breaks down the gas-causing oligosaccharides and doesn't leach any of the nutrients as soaking does.
She suggests cooking 450g at a time and freezing what you don't need immediately.
There is one caveat with red kidney beans: these may contain a potentially dangerous toxin that is easily destroyed by boiling for 10 minutes in a saucepan before cooking in the slow cooker.
This is her method for slow cooker dried beans from Joan Bishop's New Zealand crockpot and slow-cooker cookbook.
This is the easiest way to cook dried beans. No overnight soaking, no parboiling (except for red kidney beans). If you are planning to use the beans in another recipe in which cooking will continue, cook them until barely tender.
If you are planning to mash or puree the beans, cook until they are softer. The cooking times for dried beans are similar, whether cooked in the slow cooker or Crockpot, but faster in the ''speedy'' slow cooker.
Bean salad
I like to think of this as a salad of the Americas because its main ingredients, beans, corn, peppers, chilli and tomato, all originated there. If you use a mix of different coloured beans, it makes a colourful dish. I used a combination of black turtle beans, pinky pinto beans, white haricot beans and red kidney beans.
Serves 6-8
4 cups cooked beans
1 can (410g) whole kernel corn (or fresh corn kernels if in season)
½-1 red or other coloured pepper, finely chopped
¼ red onion, finely chopped
½ red or green chilli, finely chopped (or to taste)
a big handful of parsley, finely chopped
10-12 ripe cherry tomatoes
Dressing
½-1 clove garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp wine vinegar
pinch raw sugar
leaves from a couple of sprigs of thyme
salt and pepper to taste.
Method
Cook the beans separately as described on earlier in the article, or rinse canned beans. Mix with the other ingredients. I like to keep the tomatoes separate to decorate but they would be just as good mixed in.
Put all the dressing ingredients in a jar with a lid and shake well. Pour over the salad and mix. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Decorate with sliced cherry or other ripe tomatoes - or any other seasonal vegetable.
Dal from Varanasi
This recipe for dal was shown to me by Summi Kapoor in Varanasi, India. The secret to the flavour is the tempering or tadka, onions and spices fried in a little oil or ghee (clarified butter), which adds a delicious burst of flavour at the end of cooking.
In India, it's necessary to sort through grains and lentils to remove stones and grit as they come straight from the farmers, but pulses bought here are usually already cleaned. She used little orange split lentils (masoor dal) that are readily available here and cook down to a mush. Brown, green and black lentils tend to hold their shape. (Look in the soup aisle or bulk bins in the supermarket for lentils.)
1 cup cleaned lentils
4 cups water
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 tsp turmeric
salt to taste
Tempering
2 Tbsp oil or butter or ghee
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds green
½ chilli, finely chopped
a pinch chilli powder or to taste
Method
Four parts of water are used to one of lentils.
Put the lentils, water, chopped tomato, turmeric and a little salt in a pot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes until the lentils are soft and mushy and the water absorbed.
In India, lentils and rice are often cooked in pressure cookers, which reduces the time by two-thirds to about 5-8 minutes. While the lentils are cooking, prepare the tempering. Heat the oil or butter (or a mix of the two) in a small pot.
Add the finely chopped onion and cook until beginning to brown. Add the cumin seeds, green chilli and chilli powder. Allow to cook for a minute or two then pour over the cooked dal and stir in.
Dal can be served with rice, curries, chapati flatbread and yoghurt, or, if it is made a little thinner with more water, it makes a delicious soup.
Chickpea stew with chorizo
This is one of those useful recipes that you can vary to your taste, adding whatever vegetables you have and serve as a soup, stew or even a dry dish, depending on the amount of liquid you add. The dry version is also good cold as a salad.
It is inspired by Spanish peasant dishes.
You can, of course, use rinsed and drained canned chickpeas, and substitute other spicy sausage for the chorizo.
Serves 4-6
1 cup dried chickpeas
3 medium onions, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 tsp smoked paprika (I use one of hot and one of sweet)
1 can (450g) tomatoes in juice (crushed is easier but whole will do)
2-4 chorizos or other spicy sausages, sliced
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A good handful of parsley, chopped
Method
Put the dried chickpeas in a deep bowl and cover with plenty of cold water. Soak for 4-5 hours or overnight. Alternatively, cover them well with boiling water and soak for about ½-¾ hour, until they have swelled to three or four times their original volume.
Drain the soaked chickpeas, rinse and put into a pot with plenty of fresh water. Cook for about 45 minutes to an hour or until tender but not mushy. (A pressure cooker will take about 20 minutes or you can leave them in a slow cooker for 4-5 hours.) If using canned chickpeas, drain and rinse them.
Peel the onions and chop them roughly. Put them in a heavy-based pot with the olive oil and let them cook over medium heat, stirring from time to time.
Peel and chop the garlic and carrots and add them to the pan. Cook until the onions have coloured slightly.
Stir in the paprika, then add the chickpeas, tomatoes with their juice and chorizo. If you have cooked the chickpeas yourself, you can use some of the stock, or else add water. The amount will depend on whether you are making a stew, a soup or a dryish dish.
Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for 20-40 minutes. If there is more liquid than you want, remove the lid so it can evaporate, or else add more if you want a soupier dish.
Stir through the parsley just before serving.
This is good just by itself served in deep plates or bowls, with crusty bread to mop up the juices.
You can add whatever other vegetables you like - potatoes or pumpkin would be good at this time of year, or peppers, beans or zucchini in summer.
The humble legume
Pulses, peas, beans and lentils, the edible seeds of leguminous plants, have been part of the human diet for millennia.
In Europe and the Middle East, hunters and gatherers ate wild lentils some 13,000 years ago and they were domesticated and cultivated in the following millennia. Fava (broad) beans, chickpeas and peas followed around 7500BCE and are still a major part of the cuisines of Europe, west and south Asia. The ancient Romans held pulses in high esteem.
In China, the soy bean, used in numerous different ways from fresh to fermented, to tofu and soy sauce, was domesticated around 13,000 years ago and mung and aduki beans and winged peas are also part of Eastern cuisines.
In Africa, cowpeas, pigeon peas and other legumes are cultivated and eaten. Surprisingly, most of the different varieties of beans available these days, including lima, haricot, kidney, black, pinto and runner beans, came from the Americas and were an important part of the diet of Aztecs, Incas and other peoples. Now they are an integral part of many other cuisines, especially in Spain, Italy and India.
Using pulses
• Make a curry or casserole with lentils, chickpeas or beans and serve over rice and/or with bread, fish or meat.
• Add lentils to stews, casseroles and dishes like spaghetti bolognaise.
• Pulses are made for soups - use them in hearty winter soups like minestrone, or add red lentils to pumpkin soup.
• Don't forget how good split-pea soup can be.
• Mushy peas, mashed cooked dried peas, are a comforting winter side vegetable.
• Chickpeas, lentils and beans make a good base, or an addition to salads.
