Cooking with pulses is a lot easier than you may think. They are very safe to eat and cook with. You can use them canned, frozen, and dried in your cooking without any issues. Having said that, there are some basic cooking instructions that work for most types of pulses that you may want to follow.
- Drain Canned Pulses – Most of the time (regardless of the brand), when you use precooked canned pulses of any type, from chickpeas to kidney beans, you’ll want to drain and rinse them. The main reason is that they put a lot of sodium in these packages. Plus, unless your recipe says use the liquid, it will change the flavor and texture of your recipe if you use the juice.
- Soaking Pulses – Most pulses should be soaked for 12 hours due to the phytic acid and other issues that make them harder to digest. If you get a lot of gas when you eat pulses, this is the reason. Even though you don’t need to soak lentils before cooking them, if you do get gas consider soaking anyway. Soaking makes cooking faster too. Don’t salt the water when soaking.
- Pre-Soaking and Rinsing – When cooking with dried pulses other than lentils, you probably always want to soak them. You always want to wash and rinse them, though, because there may be stones mixed in that weren’t noticed while packaging them. Plus, they do not wash your beans before they package them because it will cause mold growth. Always toss the soak water or rinse water. This makes the beans much more digestible too.
- Add Baking Soda – If you want your pulses to be able to turn into a puree, it’s vital to know how to make them soft enough. Adding about 2 teaspoons of baking soda to the water per pound of pulses that you’re soaking will help them get softer. You’re going to drain and rinse the baking soda out, so don’t add that to your recipes.
- Cooking – The way you cook pulses is that you typically boil them in a lot of water over low heat with a lid to keep evaporation to a minimum. You don’t want the temperature too high because you’re going to cook them for a long time, and you don’t want them sticking or scorching.
- Adding Meat – If you are going to add meat to your beans, it’s best to do it after they’ve been soaked and drained. Add the meat during the actual cooking process or even after the pulses are cooked. Adding meat at the beginning can cut down on foaming due to the addition of fat. If you’re going to puree the pulses, though, you should cook the meat separately because the addition of salt can toughen up the beans.
- Seasoning – Pulses are best seasoned after they’re done or nearly done with the cooking process to avoid making your beans tough or over-soft. You can safely follow the directions for well-tested recipes, though, which do usually include seasonings from the start. Just know that if you want beans in a salad, for example, you’ll do best to be strict about adding salt and spices too soon.
By following these basics for cooking pulses safely, you’re going to find that you really enjoy adding them to your meals or making an entire meal out of them more often. The fact that dried pulses are so inexpensive makes them an excellent high-protein staple in your diet.
