Last night I cooked a bean stew that I often cook up the traditional way - a pot over fire (gas stove). But, I decided to do some experimenting and see what the Anova can do with this recipe. How else can I learn?
Let me preface this and say these are Puerto Rican-style beans called habichuelas guisadas. I’ve posted them before on here. It’s more of a hearty stew. More ingredients are usually involved, but I was pressed with time and wasn’t sure how some ingredients might respond to different palettes (like Spanish olives).
Anyway, long story short - it came out very good. Sometimes when I am cooking beans, it’s easy to “overcook” them and have them much softer (mushier?) than I like. This is especially true if I am occupied with other tasks in the kitchen or my home and I forget to periodically check on the beans.
What I did: I first took my chopped onion and bell pepper and cooked until soft. I added everything into a bowl and mixed them all together. Threw the ingredients into a bag and cooked for 2 hours at 190F degrees. Pretty easy.
What I loved about it was that the beans and potatoes were perfectly cooked, tender, and really tasty. For next time, I’d love to start them off dried and see what kind of results I get from that. If you want to check out the recipe, I posted it up:
Just wanted to share with everyone! Definitely will be experimenting and learning more on the way.
It looks delicious. Give it a try with all the traditional ingredients I would like to hear how it turns out. I personally like to try dishes prepared as they normally would be. Many things loose something when you try and adjust for individuals’ tastes.
Thanks! I will probably recreate this tomorrow with how I typically make this dish. This stew can have “strange” flavors to those not accustomed to it (i.e. strong flavors of olives), but I definitely get what you’re saying! Will definitely experiment again with this!
I’m going to pass on the recipe because beans don’t like me, (dietary restriction).
It is interesting that the potatoes and the beans both came out properly cooked.
The thought of starting them dry and allowing them to “sweat” in their own juices is intriguing.
Must try that with other veggies!
It was a great experiment. Honestly, I was a little worried that that I may be left with under cooked potatoes, since I had never cooked them in a stew before (sous vide). But, they came out perfectly tender. I do want to try out dry beans for the stew next time and see what sort of results I get. I would have to adjust for a longer cook time.