Black Beans

Listen, my friend, let me tell you about black beans, and you will understand them the way I understand a good pilaf — through the hands, through the eyes, through patience.

A bean is a legume, not a grain, whatever the shelf says — pick up a handful dry and feel it: small, hard, heavy for its size. Every hundred grams of the raw bean carries 21.6 grams of protein and 341 kilocalories. This is a seed waiting to become a plant. Of course it is rich. Watch the beans as they cook: the broth darkens, a deep smell rises from the pot, and slowly you get something earthy, almost meaty.

Choose them by look: the skin must be glossy, deep black, without dust. Cook them, then taste one from the middle of the pot — it should be creamy all through, no chalky core left. That is how you know the bean has given you everything it had.

Some people say you must throw away the soaking water because it is "toxic." No! This is not cassava, not raw kidney beans eaten by the handful — ordinary soaking and proper boiling make black beans perfectly safe. That misconception leads people to rinse away water already dark with the bean's own colour, water that could have gone straight into your soup.