Ingredient

Black beans

Black beans — black turtle beans — are dense, creamy and mildly sweet, and they produce a dark, glossy, faintly purple cooking liquid that is half the value of the pot. Throwing that liquid away is the single most common mistake made with them.

The liquid is the point

As black beans cook, starch and pigment leach into the water and it thickens into something between a broth and a light sauce — dark, glossy, savoury and faintly sweet.

In Latin American and Caribbean cooking that liquid is not a by-product. Frijoles negros is beans in their own broth; feijoada depends on it; black bean soup is largely it. A tin of black beans drained and rinsed has had the best part poured down the sink.

So: cook them from dried where you can, and keep the liquid. If you are using tins, buy them in water rather than heavy brine, and use the liquid in the dish rather than rinsing it away — though if a tin's liquid is very salty, taste before you commit.

The liquid also thickens further as it cools and stands. Mashing a ladleful of the beans and stirring them back in is the traditional way to thicken a pot without adding anything.

Cooking them from dried

1. Sort through them for stones and shrivelled beans, and rinse.
2. Soak overnight in plenty of cold water, or use a quick soak — cover with water, boil for a couple of minutes, take off the heat and leave for an hour.
3. Drain the soaking water and start with fresh. This is worth doing, though some cooks keep it for colour.
4. Cook them in fresh water with aromatics — onion, garlic, a bay leaf, and epazote if you have it. No salt yet, and no acid.
5. Simmer gently rather than boiling hard. A hard boil breaks the skins and turns the pot cloudy and mushy.
6. Add salt when the beans are nearly tender — around three quarters of the way. Salting early is widely blamed for tough beans, and while the effect is smaller than folklore suggests, acid genuinely does keep them firm, so hold back tomato, vinegar and citrus until the end.
7. Cook until genuinely creamy inside. An undercooked bean is grainy and unpleasant, and there is no reason to stop short.

What to make

• Frijoles negros — beans simmered with onion, garlic, cumin and oregano, in their own broth. Cuban and Mexican, and the everyday version.
• Refried beans, mashed and fried in fat until thick and glossy.
• Feijoada — the Brazilian black bean and pork stew, cooked long, served with rice, orange and farofa.
• Black bean soup, blended or partly blended, with lime, soured cream and coriander.
• In tacos, burritos and bowls, either whole or refried.
• Rice and beans — Caribbean, cooked together, often with coconut milk and thyme.
• In a salad, with corn, red onion, lime and coriander.
• In a burger or a fritter, where their density holds a patty together.

What goes with them

Cumin, oregano, bay

The standard Latin American seasoning trio for a bean pot.

Epazote

The traditional Mexican herb for black beans specifically. Distinctive and worth finding — see epazote.

Lime and coriander

Added at the end, and the acid is what stops a pot of beans tasting heavy.

Pork in some form

Bacon, chorizo, a ham bone, or salted pork. Traditional in most of the classic dishes.

Chilli

Chipotle in particular, whose smoke suits them.

Orange

The Brazilian pairing with feijoada, and the acidity works better than it sounds.

Common questions