Gently and Long

There is a trick to cooking beans, a very obvious and simple and nearly impossible trick.

Patience.

Cook them gently - just below the boil, a medium simmer. Any setting in a slow cooker will do it, but nothing about medium on a stove top.

And cook them long - a decently fresh dried bean will be cooked enough for a recipe in perhaps 45 minutes, for eating on its own in perhaps an hour and a half. Chickpeas will take twice as long.

I cook beans thusly - beans in a pot with water to cover by two inches, a solid glug of a good olive oil on top of the water, a tsp and a half of salt per pound of beans, and a good shake of sage over the top of it all. Cover, if I can find the cover to the pot that I am using -- otherwise, I just add more water as needed.

Almost any bean is good this way - pinto beans prefer an onion and some garlic to sage.

It's the secret to a good pot of beans, and to a good lot of other things in life.

Gently and long.