How to Cook Beans (The Prep Shift)

NOTE: THIS POST CONTINUES OUR THREE WEEK SERIES, WE'LL BE USING THE ELEMENTS FROM LAST AND THIS WEEK'S POST TO COMPLETE NEXT WEEK'S RECIPE.

It's not all glory. Not remotely. You need to know this; someone should tell you. It's not at all like TV. Professional cooking is, at best, only about 10% glory. The rest is, well, the rest. Actually, “the rest” makes up the majority of what a professional cook does on any given day. That 10% of the goods – service, finishing meals and sending them out, getting the odd bit of positive feedback from the customers – is completely eclipsed by the amount of work required to get ready for dinner service on any given day. Typically, I work a fifteen-hour day and only during a tiny bit near the end do I actually cook meals for customers. The rest of it fills up will roasting this, peeling that, blanching and rolling and confit and boning, chopping and sauteing and salting butchering, cleaning and simmering and a whole host of other generally menial activities. Not glamorous at all.



The prep portion of any shift is, as I mentioned, full of little jobs. It involves endless buckets of vegetables, giant pots of stocks and soups, and countless hours of fine brunoise and julienne and chiffonade. It's how every chef earns his knife skills.

To many professional cooks, the prep shift is a shitty one. The dull repetition, the crushing weight of impossibly long prep lists, the requisite constant concentration so that none of the seven or so jobs you have on the go turn sour, all breed resentment in some chefs. I, on the other hand, quite look forward to all of it. I love ticking jobs off my list as I go, juggling dozens of tasks at a time, stocking up my cool room with food ready for service; it's like preparing for a siege.

More than any of these things, I find pleasure in perfecting the simplest of jobs. This, in fact, is one of the things which differentiates a good chef from a great one. Are you able to maintain high standard when prepping? Sure, it's easy when sending out a steak, to imagine the customer eating it, and how they'll not enjoy their meal if the meat is overcooked. It is not so easy to imagine that 40 customers will be eating your parsnip puree, three bites at a time, and each one needs to be perfect.



This week is a prep shift. Today we'll be making a couple of seemingly unrelated foods, all to be used next week in part three of this triptych we started last week (anyone out there guess yet what we'll be making next week?) None of these things are meant to be eaten on their own, though both the rabbit legs and beans are tasty enough to be eaten thus.

In fact, this is the best way to cook beans, either fresh or dried, and is well worth keeping this method tucked away in that pretty little head of yours.

Borlotti Beans

These appaloosa-like beans (also called pinto beans) are my favorite beans. I wish only that cooking did not erase their pink and white patterns; alas, the beans turn an earthy brownish-gray. Upon tasting, however, any color-related concerns evaporate. These are the King of beans – meaty, firm, and creamy.

This cooking method works well with all beans, fresh or dry. The key is to cook them as slowly as possible until they are just cooked. No matter how long that takes.

1.5k borlotti beans, in their pods, or 2 cups dried beans
2 sprigs thyme
olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cracked

Pod the fresh beans (or soak the dried beans briefly in cold water and remove any which float). In a pot, cover the beans with water, so that they are submerged under 2cm of water (double this depth for dried beans). Add enough olive oil so that there is a 1cm layer floating on the top. Add one sprig of thyme. Do not season the beans.

Bring to a simmer over medium head, taking care not to let the beans boil, and reduce the heat to low. You want the beans to just tick over. Cook thus until the beans are soft through, about an hour for fresh beans, at least double that for dried. The key is to remove the beans from the heat when they are cooked, but before they start to burst.

Add the cracked garlic, the second sprig of thyme, and season liberally with lashings of salt and pepper. Cool in the liquid, then drain. Remove the garlic cloves and thyme sprigs.

Well need both the beans and the liquid they were cooked in for next week's post.



Rabbit and Ham Stock

All white stocks, that is stocks with raw (as opposed to roasted) bones, are made in more or less the same manner. The bones are covered in plenty of cold water, brought to a simmer, skimmed, and then the vegetables are added. The lot simmers for a few hours and then strained. Stocks sould remain un-seasoned. This allows you to luse thm in your cooking with worrying about adding to much salt to your final dish. The bacon or ham bones add a hint of smoky flavor to the stock, as well as adding a bit of body (rabbit bones don't have much gelatin in them).

500g bacon or ham bones
bones from 1 rabbit (from last week's post)
1 carrot, peeled, rough chop
1 onion, peeled, rough chop
1 stick celery, rough chop
1 head garlic, cut in half
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
12 black peppercorns

Combine the bacon or ham bones and the rabbit bones in a large pot and cover with water, submerging them completely with about 5cm water above the level of the bones. . Bring to a simmer over high heat, reduce to a low simmer, and skim any fat and scum which rises to the surface. Add the remainder of the ingredients and simmer for four hours. Remove from heat and strain, discarding the solids.

Confit Rabbit

2 rabbit legs
2 cups duck fat
confit salt (see below)

Weigh the legs. For every 500g of meat, you will need 5g of confit salt. Place the rabbit into a nonreactive container just large enough to hold the legs. Sprinkle the salt evenly over both sides of the meat. Cover, and refrigerate for 8 hours.

Heat your oven to 150º C. Rinse the salt from the meat and pat dry. Gently melt the duck fat. Lay the legs flat in a baking dish or small pot and pour the fat over the top. Make sure the legs are completely submerged.

Cover with a lid or foil, and cook in th oven for at least 3 hours, and up to 6, until the meat is tender but not falling apart. Cool the legs to room temperature in the fat. Gently remove them from the warm fat, strain the fat into a tall container, allow any liquid to settle to the bottom, and pour the fat back over the meat, making sure to leave the liquid behind and that the legs are completely covered.

Confit Salt

100g rock salt
12 bay leaves
5 sprigs thyme
1 head garlic, skin on, rough chop
2 Tbsp black peppercorns

Combine all the ingredients.