"bean soup" news and stories

A weeknight dinner that's not only easy to make but delicious? Count us in. For this simple white bean soup, it's important to build a deep flavor base, says KitchenDaily expert Marcus Samuelsson. To achieve this, he uses onion, garlic, carrot, and celery -- the foundation of any good vegetable soup. Also, although this soup is mainly vegetables, he recommends using bacon to give it more punch.

Get Marcus' recipe for White Bean Soup.

By the time late August comes around, we've usually grown tired of picking green beans from the garden. So we let whatever varieties are still growing "go to seed." The pods swell, and then, as autumn descends, they brown and dry. We grow some variety of beans specifically for drying as well, but we've learned that almost any sort of bean will dry nicely and can be used in recipes all winter.

To shell a large amount of dried beans quickly, we simply put all of the dried pods into a burlap bag. We usually wait until December to do this, since we want the pods to be as dry and crackly as possible. Then we whack the entire bag and its contents repeatedly against the frozen ground. Don't hold back -- it's impossible to hurt dried beans. Sometimes we even stomp on the bag to break up the most stubborn pods. Once the beans have separated from the pods, they fall to the bottom of the bag. The pieces of dried pods are like chaff at the top. Do this on a windy day and you can pour the bag's entire contents onto a sheet or towel from shoulder height -- the pod chaff blows away and the heavier beans fall directly onto the towel to be gathered. Any remaining bits of pod will float to the top of a bowl of water when soaking the beans for a recipe.

After the jump, find our simplest, favorite bean soup for cold weather. (Use any variety, or mixed varieties, of beans. We're always amazed at the different tastes, textures, and colors possible from our dried beans.)

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Pictured at right is the very last few spoonfuls from a pot of navy bean soup my father made recently. As bean soups go, this one is on the thin side, its deep bean-y taste complemented with the robust porky flavor of a smoked ham hock. The United States Senate has served this soup every day for, by some accounts, over a hundred years. What better way to commemorate the presidential inauguration of the first senator to be elected to the office since Kennedy?

My father followed the Senate's published recipe, making just a few changes based on the variation published in American Classics, one of the many tomes issued by the Cook's Illustrated people. To my surprise, neither recipe advises soaking the beans overnight, instead bringing them to a boil straightaway with the ham hock. More shockingly still, the American Classics version makes a strong case for salting from the get-go, which flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that salting toughens the beans.

To make the soup just as my father did, which I most urge you to do, use the Senate recipe but don't bother heating the water first, add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt to the water with the beans, and throw in a clove or two of minced garlic while browning the onion in the butter. My father browned the onion and garlic excessively, which tasted quite nice.

The final step? Ladle some soup into a red, white, and/or blue bowl, crank up the TV volume when Aretha comes on stage, and enjoy your senatorial soup.

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