Haricot bean
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White kidney bean
What this vegetable does
It replenishes the Spleen and settles the gut, and also replenishes the Kidney.
How to eat it
Good used in soups and stews, warming the body gently.
A yakuzen note
It is held to replenish a weak Spleen and to help you get your strength back.
White kidney bean is sweet and neutral, held to replenish the Spleen and settle the way the gut works, and to replenish the Kidney as well. It suits tiredness, poor appetite, swelling and loose bowels in particular, and helps you get your strength back and keep well. Brought in as a soup or a stew, it aids digestion while it is kind to the body.
TOC
The types of white kidney bean, and how to prepare them
If you want to enjoy what white kidney bean does, it helps to know what kind of bean it is, its types and how to prepare it. Loved for its gentle sweetness and floury texture, it gives a stew or a soup real substance.
The bean behind white bean paste
White kidney bean is the collective name for the white varieties of the kidney bean, and takes in ofuku, tebo and shiro kintoki among others. Refined in its sweetness, it is known as the main ingredient of shiro-an, the white bean paste used in Japanese confectionery. The Japanese crop comes mainly from Hokkaido and is harvested in autumn. What reaches the market is mostly the dried bean, available all year. It is the same species as the sayaingen eaten as a young pod, but white kidney beans are the fully ripened beans, dried before use.
Always cook them thoroughly: soaking and pre-boiling
The single most important thing in cooking white kidney beans is to cook them properly. Raw or undercooked, they contain a good deal of a substance called lectin, which can cause nausea, diarrhoea and other symptoms like those of food poisoning. Do not eat them raw or half-cooked: the rule is to simmer them well until soft. The preparation goes like this.
- Soak them in plenty of water overnight, six to eight hours, until they are rehydrated right through
- Throw the soaking water away and boil them in fresh water, skimming off the scum
- Simmer them properly, until they are soft enough to crush between your fingers
Do not eat them raw or half-cooked. A way of eating them without proper cooking was once publicised and people were made unwell, so with white kidney beans the rule is to simmer them thoroughly. A pressure cooker softens them in far less time. Cooking them slowly also makes them easier to digest and helps them take up the seasoning. Once pre-boiled, the beans can go into all sorts of dishes, from stews to salads.
How to choose good white kidney beans
When choosing dried white kidney beans, these are the things to look for if you want good quality.
- Beans of an even size, and plump
- A glossy surface, with an even white colour
- Few splits, insect holes or wrinkles
Old beans are hard, rehydrate poorly and cook unevenly. The newer they are, the plumper they cook, so use them before long once you have bought them.
How to eat white kidney beans
White kidney bean goes from Japanese simmered beans to Western stews and everything between. Here is how to use its gentle sweetness and floury texture.
As simmered beans, sweetened beans and white bean paste
Pre-boiled white kidney beans simmered sweet with sugar and soy sauce make an old-fashioned, floury side dish. Coated in sugar and dried they become amanatto; worked smooth they become the shiro-an used in Japanese confectionery. White bean paste can go straight into sweets, or be varied with matcha or fruit. You get a gentle flavour that plays to the natural sweetness of the bean.
In soups, stews and salads
They sit well in Western cooking too, and used in a minestrone or pork and beans stewed with tomato, or in the French cassoulet, they add the savour of the bean and real substance. Beans simmered soft added to a salad or a marinade work as a note with something to chew on. Crushed to a paste, they can go into dips and soups. The cooking liquid carries the savour of the beans as well, so taking it with the soup wastes nothing.
How to keep white kidney beans
Keep dried white kidney beans away from damp and insects. Put them in an airtight container or a zip bag and keep them somewhere cool and dark with little damp. To keep them a long time, the fridge is reassuring. Pre-boiling a batch at once saves work, so freeze the cooked beans in small portions, ready for stews and salads. Frozen in their cooking liquid, they do not dry out and stay good in the mouth. Beans pre-boiled and frozen can go straight from the freezer into a stew.
Alongside this, a fellow bean, The benefits of soybeans or The benefits of adzuki bean as a guide when planning a menu.
Available as a dried bean all year, white kidney bean is a useful bean that works across simmered beans, white bean paste and Western stews. Keep to the one step of soaking overnight and simmering it properly and you can enjoy that floury sweetness with confidence. Bring gently flavoured white kidney beans to the everyday table.
