How do we safely boil & eat dried Lablab beans (Lablab purpureus)?
I’ve read they require 2 changes of water & a long boiling time to destroy the toxic cyanogenic glucosides (How long?). How exactly do we effectively do this? by 2 changes of water, do we boil & drain it twice? Or does presoaking, discarding water & then boiling count as 2 changes of water?
I have tried presoaking White Lablab Beans “Surti Val” overnight, discarding the water & then boiling them once, (Exactly like common beans). The result is a creamy/earthy bean flavor but also bitter & my stomach feels weird afterwards. So I’ve tired to fix my mistake & boiled them again for 11 more minutes. They still taste the same, altho maybe slightly less bitter (Idk if this is me wanting them to be less bitter or they were actually less bitter). I don’t know what I did wrong.
These were White Hyacinth Beans, not the brown types which apparently contain even more toxic cyanogenic glucosides. Below is what the brown Lablab beans look like (I didn’t try eating them yet). Both kinds of light & dark brown mixes.
The brown Lablab beans are known as Field Beans or in India as “Kadave Val”. Simply boiling dry seeds in 2 changes of water isn’t enough for these, sprouting is aparently required. They are first
pre-soaked overnight (10 hours), water drain & wash again so they don’t become sticky.
Finally they are ready to cook. Do we change 2 times water after this or no?
I haven’t tried cooking the sprouted (aka Lablab Bean Microgreens) yet. Is this effectively the only safe way to eat dried Hyacinth Bean seeds?
This links to the blog I learned about the sprouting/cooking technique
According to EatTheWeeds, dried beans require 2 changes of water & longer time to cook.
According to this EPIC Study : https://www.journalijdr.com/sites/default/files/issue-pdf/26828.pdf
“Mature seeds are consumed as a cooked food or a sprouted seed.”
“Some varieties (mostly dark-seeded types) contain high levels of a cyanogenic glycoside in their seeds. When cyanogenic glycosides are hydrolyzed by plant enzymes during cooking, or possibly by intestinal enzymes after ingestion, cyanide can be released and lead to cyanide poisoning”
So cooking causes the toxic cyanogenic glycosides to become hydrolyzed & thus cyanide is released? Is this why the water is discarded? But isn’t cyanide destoryed by heat/cooking/boiling anways? So what gives bruh!? Why were the boiled beans I tried slightly bitter? Again what did I do wrong?
I hope together as a community, we can figure how to safely cook Dried Hyacinth Beans. Please share your thoughts, I need bounce off ideas to better wrap my mind around it.
Are these beans amazing to eat or something? Superfood? It reminds me of the dangers of preparing pufferfish only pufferfish is supposed to be delicious. I don’t know if I’d risk my life to eat either tbh, but I’m intrigued.
Well all the other edible parts of the plant I have yet to explore amaze me.
Leaves are edible raw or cooked
Tender immature pods edible cooked & make good stirfry
Flowers edible raw or cooked & taste sweet from what I’ve read
Perennial cultivars produce edible cooked tubers, some varieties are selected for this purpose.
Finally the mature seed is edible cooked, but still not sure how exactly with what changes of water & how sprouting changes the edibility.
Even if the mature seed is just bad/not very useful as food, hopefully all the other edible parts more than make up for it. It’s a very underutilized crop that is super easy to grow.
The varieties I’ve eaten taste fine with some soaking (4 to 24 hours?) and boiling for 20 or 30 minutes. I’ve mostly eaten a brown-seeded variety a neighbor has been growing for decades, but also at least some beans from ECHO varieties Highworth, Rongai, Chiang Dao, and White.
Interesting… perhaps variety selection is a big part in bitterness.
After soaking do you discard the soaking water & pour in new water to boil with?
How thoroughly do you cook dry beans to render them edible without any bitter taste?
Do you really cook them like regular common beans?
I wonder why they taste find while the indian ones I tried from the grocery store taste bitter. More Cyanogenic Glucosides?
I just found an interesting study on solving the anti-nutient problems in Lablab Beans
They tested different cooking methods, using Baking Soda in presoak stage, boiling with baking soda & antoclaving for 45 minutes (Which is pressured steaming, often used by scientist to sterilize things). Do pressure cookers do the antoclaving effectively?
“Soaking seemed to have limited effect in eliminating phytohaemagglutinating
activity, whereas antoclaving (45 min) seemed to eliminate the haemagglutinating activity completely.”
So is baking soda pre-soak + antoclaving for 45 minutes the best method?
Please share your thoughts below, curious how other cooking methods affect toxicity/anti-nutrients break downs.
okay I just tried cooking Lablab Beans again with the new tips I’ve learned! This time I presoaked them with Baking soda overnight twice (Total timespan 2 & 1/2 days) than I boiled them with more baking soda & citric acid for ~2 Hours, drained water & tried eating them. They taste slightly less bitter, very strong earthy flavor. Perhaps this is just how they naturally taste? I don’t mind it too much but my brother says they taste like earwax beans (Less biased taste tester).
For now I don’t notice a weird stomach feel yet, so perhaps the poison has finally been solved?
Well see how I feel later (Or maybe I developed Microbes for Lablab beans)?
Again these are the same White Surati Lablab beans I’ve tried last time. I still have Red & Brown types to try, maybe they will taste better (Altho I’ve read the brown/red types taste even more bitter/earthy)?
Pressure cookers may be able to do autoclaving effectively. I know for a fact that pressure canners do — apparently a pressure canner is an autoclave, just one built for a specific purpose!
Good that’s what I needed to confirm, now I need to find a pressure cooker & learn how to use it.
This also makes me wonder, Pressure Cooker on other beans? Maybe it cooks them even better than boiling? Does it take less energy meaning more energy efficient?
I can’t speak for a pressure cooker, but I can speak for a pressure canner.
My favorite way to cook beans is to stick dried beans into a mason jar, add water (or bone broth, for extra flavor!), add an appropriate lid and ring, and then run them through my pressure canner.
Anything that doesn’t seal can be put into the fridge to eat within the next week. Anything that does seal can be put into my food storage to eat sometime within the next five years. Either way, I’ve now saved myself a whole lot of time and bother for the future, and the beans always turn out perfectly cooked.
A pressure canner can be used as a pressure cooker, but a pressure cooker can NOT be used for canning, so if you can afford it just get a canner. You could use the canner to cook the beans all together and then strain the water, or like Emily said, can them (in jars) and and have shelf stable ready to eat food.
Yep, which is why I don’t own a pressure cooker! I’ve never even used my pressure canner for pressure cooking, even though I could. I keep on thinking, “Why bother? I’d rather just make a batch of mason jars, so I have some to eat now and some to eat later. Plus, I don’t have to clean out the pot afterwards!”
Check your local thrift stores regularly. Every so often, someone may donate an old pressure canner, so you may be able to get a dented old one for cheap (maybe around $30). Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace may be good places to find a used one for cheap, too. They’re sturdy and last for a long time, so an old one would be reasonable to use.
Alternately, if you don’t want to spend a lot of time looking, and/or you want one in perfect condition that comes with instructions (and is likely a bit easier to use), a new one costs about $85-$120. I bought mine brand new on Amazon, and I consider it well worth worth the cost.
We bought the 23 quart presto 9 years ago for $99 (USD) and it’s going strong, no complaints, but now it’s listed for $140. If you’re the “buy once, cry once” type, the “All American" brand is considered something your grandkids might pass on to their grandkids, but it’s $400+
I think mine is the Presto and it cost me $99, too. It’s a shame to hear the price has gone up that much, but that’s inflation!
You can buy an electric pressure canner, too, and I had one because I found it so useful to be able to do a mini batch (it only holds four jars) in something that automated more of the steps, so it was more convenient. However, because it’s electric, a lot more things can go wrong. I tried using it back-to-back like I had been doing for over a year with the manual pressure canner, and it blew a fuse, so I had to buy a $30 replacement fuse. Then, earlier this year (after about 100 times of using it over the years), something went wrong and water exploded out of it. Maybe a seal was loose? That wouldn’t have been catastrophic normally, but that boiling water must have gotten into the circuit board and fried it, because it’s now dead as a doornail. I don’t know if it just needs a new fuse or if the whole thing is dead. I am disinclined to pay for another fuse to find out.
Overall, I’d say the manual pressure canner is a lot more resilient and a much better deal. It is very, very likely to last you for decades. But . . . it won’t work on a smooth-top electric stove (the pressure canner will be fine if you try — it’s the stove that will break, because a full pressure canner is too heavy for it). It will work on a gas stove or coiled electric stove. In theory, if you’re willing to watch it the entire time to make sure it stays at the appropriate level of pressure, it would work on a wood stove, too (but the instruction manual has lots of dire warnings telling you not to do that).
If you have a smooth top electric stove, you might want to consider buying an electric pressure canner instead. Just keep in mind that those are, unfortunately, less resilient and more prone to breaking. I did use about 100 times, but given the cost, I’m not leaping to replace it — I was counting on being able to use it about 1,000 times before it broke, so I feel it’s a little too fragile for my needs.
If you have a coiled electric stove or gas stove, get a manual pressure canner. There’s no question it’s better.
The electric pressure canner I had was a Carey pressure canner.
It looks like the Presto electric pressure canner is twice the price, which may or may not be worth it, depending on how durable it is and/or easy (or cheap) to repair if something goes wrong. If the higher price is just because it has more bells and whistles, I’d go with cheaper, personally, but if the higher price is because it’s probably going to last you more than twice as long before breaking, I would probably go for the more expensive one.
I would recommend the manual pressure canner instead, quite highly, but only if you have a stove you can use it on.
For what it’s worth, we use our 23qt presto on a glass top stove with no problems. Not sure how much horsepower is necessary. We’re just careful to not move it much, if at all. Canners get heavy and scratches/fractures are always a possibility on a glass top.
(Nods.) That’s what I’ve heard: the glass on a smooth top electric stove tends to crack because of the weight of a full pressure canner. I haven’t tested it out myself; I’m disinclined to, because my next-door neighbor told me she had that happen to her twice, so I’d rather not repeat the experiment!
Then, earlier this year (after about 100 times of using it over the years), something went wrong and water exploded out of it. Maybe a seal was loose? That wouldn’t have been catastrophic normally, but that boiling water must have gotten into the circuit board and fried it, because it’s now dead as a doornail. I don’t know if it just needs a new fuse or if the whole thing is dead. I am disinclined to pay for another fuse to find out.