I made a bit of a mistake, being a lazy bachelor and inexperienced at cooking. I was making chili and when it came time to add beans I discovered I didn't have any canned beans. I did however have some dried beans. I decided to save time and add these directly to the pot of chili and add some water.
However, after much simmering the beans maintain a certain unpalatable crispness. I have also read that undercooked beans contain a chemical lectin which can cause stomach discomfort. I have also read that beans should be soaked, the water discarded to remove the lectin, and then boiled to cook them.
Is there any way to salvage this? Should I just continue cooking the chili for hours? Will I have to throw out my potentially delicious chili?
Best Answer
It looks to me like you have a couple of things going on here:
To address the safety issue, I think we'd need to know more about the kind of beans you're using. Kidney beans are the ones most well known to be toxic if they are undercooked. Other beans, say, great northerns, or pintos, wouldn't have the same problem.
Then again, you still want a chili that is edible.
You certainly can cook dried beans, but there are a few factors getting in your way.
As I mentioned, I did have this same thing happen to a pot of my chili. If memory serves, I sat there fishing out each bean for probably longer than it was worth.