bean soup

The Buckhorn Exchange offers what they're calling their famous bean soup, apparently it's a favorite. Last week I had it twice. Both times I thought to myself I could do as well without much effort. 

Usually, I could probably safely say always, some kind of ham is involved with beans. Ham bone, spiral ham but not picnic ham (too salty), salt pork, bacon, smoked ham joint, whatever. I scrounged around for something ham, and I do have thick slab bacon but I didn't want to use it. Instead I substituted a single lamb hamburger that was prepared earlier and frozen, which has a few slices of bacon ground into it. I also included a single breakfast sausage patty that was sold with blueberries included. 

The beans are dry cannellini beans that were scooped out of the bulk bins at Whole Foods. They were not soaked overnight. 

Lamb patty, onion, garlic and spices were heated in a heavy-bottom pressure pot. Water was added to fill half way. All the dry cannellini beans I had on hand were dumped into the pot along with a few handfuls of rice. I could have included potato instead of rice, carrots, celery, but I didn't feel like it. The lamb patty caused fond to form on the bottom of the pot which was lifted up by the water and turned the whole mixture darker than the bean soup at Buckhorn Exchange.

* 1 lamb hamburger patty that includes bacon. 

* 1 breakfast sausage patty 

* 1 whole onion diced

* 2 large garlic cloves, smashed and diced
* 3 small bay leaves 

* 15 peppercorns

* 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

* 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

* 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

* 1 teaspoon mixed pepper flakes

* 1 teaspoon kosher salt

* 2 teaspoons baking soda. 

The baking soda is included to vitiate the unfortunate side effect of the difficulty of digesting the oligosaccharide in beans. It was added last. When the baking soda was dumped into the hot liquid, the entire pot foamed up violently and risked overflowing the pot. This made me think it was reacting to some unknown acid which I was careful not to include with the beans. A problem developed in that the foaming would not stop. It interfered with putting the lid on the pressure cooker because the foam could block the safety valve. I kept removing the foam and it kept right on forming. Finally I put the lid on the pot and cooked the beans for one hour on low pressure. When done, a small portion of beans was removed and smashed then returned as thickener. 

Contrary to popular belief, salt does not interfere with beans cooking, LIES !!!!, but acid does. Salt actually helps beans, acid hurts them. Acid causes the beans to form a tough exterior that can be used to the clever cooks advantage if the beans are intended to sit on the stove on low for a long time. The toughness that acid develops can help long-cooking beans from turning to mush. The acid would come from tomatoes, and from molasses if those are used. In that case, hold off on whatever acidic element you intend to include until the end or until the beans have already softened.  

Conclusion: This bean soup is delicious. Spicier than than Buckhorn Exchange's bean soup. Frankly, this is better.