Making Bean Flour and Cooking with Old Beans

May 05, 2013

Earlier today, I received the following question on beans, it was in a comment on a post about bean flours.  I think it may be of interest to many of you. The question is “Can you use pinto bean flour for the biscuits? Someone gave me a large amount of pinto beans. Very old and hard. Didn’t want to throw them out.  This would be a good way to use them”.

There are a couple of parts to this answer.  The first question is do you have a mill that will grind them.  It takes a pretty good mill if they are very hard.

If you have the mill, pinto bean flour can be used in several ways.  You can use it as a flour or to make refried beans.  I have never tried it in the biscuit recipe, but I think it will work.  To make refried beans use the following recipe.

Bring water to a boil and stir in bean flour.  Cover and cook 5 minutes, stirring.

This recipe can be used in place of canned refried beans that you come from the store.

Pinto bean flour can be used to replace up 25% of wheat flour in any recipe.  Be warned it may change the taste. 1 pound of dried beans = 2 cups dried beans = 6 cups of cooked beans.

The second part of the answer involves softening old beans. If you are attempting to cook old beans of any type, you can try the following method to help soften old beans and speed up their cooking.  First, sort and rinse the beans.  Bring three cups of water to boil for each cup of beans.  Add the beans to the boiling water and bring to a rolling boil for two minutes.  Take the beans off the stove.  Next, add 3/8 teaspoon of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) for each cup of beans, cover and soak for 1 hour or more.  Extra baking soda may be required for older beans.  Drain and rinse the beans thoroughly.  Cover the beans with water and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 1-2 hours or until tender.  Do not add salt or other ingredients until the beans have softened adequately

WHOLE WHEAT PINTO BEAN BREAD

  • Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cup lukewarm water

  • 1 cup thoroughly mashed or liquefied cooked pinto beans

  • 1 package dry yeast

  • 3/4 cup gluten flour

  • 3 tablespoons honey

  • 3 cups unbleached white flour

  • 3 tablespoons corn oil

  • 4 cups whole-wheat flour

  • 2 ½ teaspoons salt

Mix yeast in 2 cups warm, not hot water.  Add honey and 1-cup white and 2 cups whole-wheat flour and mix.

Cover and let set in a warm place until light and spongy.  Beat in remaining ingredients with a wooden spoon except for 1-cup white flour.  Knead in the last cup of flour on a floured breadboard.  Continue to knead for seven minutes.  Allow to rise until it has doubled in size.  Shape into the size loaf desired.  Set on board and cover with towel for 10 minutes. Place your loafs in greased pans, cover them and let them rise until the bread does not spring back when pressed with finger.  Place in preheated oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat. Bake at 350 degrees until nicely browned.

Good luck with cooking old beans.  Let us know how this works for you.

Howard

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