(chickpeas, kidney beans, butter beans (gigantes), borlotti beans, aduki beans, cannellini beans, black-eyed beans, haricot beans, fava beans (broad beans, ful), black beans, mung beans, flageolets, marrowfat peas, pinto beans, split peas and lentils)
Pulses are easy-going, obliging storecupboard items with stunning versatility. Their mild flesh makes them an ideal vehicle for showcasing other bolder flavours, while their mealy centres and more fibrous skins bring texture and body to dips, hearty soups, curries and stews. The bulk and sturdiness of pulses can make for a stick-to-the-ribs combination when used along with meat, but they rub along nicely with vegetables, adding a welcome solidity, hence their perennial popularity in beanburgers, the vegetarian riposte to the beefburger. Pulses beef up salads and, properly seasoned, make a cold, wintry, salad-centric lunchbox feel much more satisfying. Of the larger pulses, chickpeas have the most distinctive character.
Beans tend to get typecast in recipes that involve tomatoes and spices. You can see why, because this formula works well. But pulses do respond to more subtle treatments and sit happily in many different culinary traditions.
Pulses can seem to be much of a muchness, but there are distinctions to be drawn on quality. The key characteristic of the pricier gourmet pulses, such as Puy or Castelluccio lentils, is that they hold their shape much better when cooked. Lower-grade pulses have a habit of going mushy the minute you take your eye off them.
For certain purposes, such as making falafel, cooking your own pulses is preferable. Some recipes will tell you that tinned pulses will perform just as well, but that is debatable. Lentils are best avoided in canned forms, unless you like paying for slurry. Besides, they are quick to cook at home. For many purposes, however, cooked tinned beans have their uses. They do save time – a rapid chilli con carne for instance – but their flavour and texture are rarely as good as those you might soak and cook yourself. And, perhaps due to the extreme heat of the canning process, tinned beans often don’t absorb other flavours quite as effectively, and are more likely to be rather soft and prone to falling apart than those that have been cooked from scratch.
Things to do with pulses
• What easier soup can there be than a can each of chickpeas and tomatoes, blitzed with cumin and sweated onions, slackened with water, sharpened with lemon, then served with a blob of yogurt?
• Warm green lentils dressed with good extra virgin olive oil, a drop of lemon juice and generous amounts of flaky sea salt and coarse ground pepper make a less predictable accompaniment to a weekday supper of sausages than a quotidian mash.
• A slowly simmered bowl of plainly cooked ful médames – Egypt’s national dish which dates back to the time of the Pharoahs – allows dried broad beans to shine when spiked with garlic, lemon and onions and livened up on serving with fresh parsley and mint.
• In the staple Caribbean rice and ‘peas’ dish, black beans peep out from fluffy white rice cooked in coconut milk along with those favourite West Indian aromatics: Scotch Bonnet chillies, spring onion, thyme and allspice.
• There’s something rather miraculous about how a pot of pretty dull boiled lentils is transformed by the addition of an Indian ‘tarka’, a seasoned oil or ghee in which garlic and onions have been browned along with whole and ground spices.
• Boiled sweet potato or squash, mashed up with the same quantity of cooked chickpeas, some tomatoes, spinach and spices, or fresh green herbs, makes a substantial, filling dish.
Are pulses good for me?
Their individual nutritional make-up does vary, but as a food category pulses provide lots of useful soluble fibre (see GRAINS/Are grains good for me?). Pulses are carbohydrate-rich foods, but they also contain a significant amount of protein. This combination of protein and soluble fibre makes them very filling, so they are great for satisfying the appetite for hours at a time. They provide small amounts of B vitamins, primarily vitamin B1 which is useful for energy and the nervous system, but they are also useful sources of minerals, notably molybdenum and manganese, which helps produce key enzymes, and folate, which is crucial for the production of red blood cells and the prevention of certain birth defects.
Pulses naturally contain certain toxins or anti-nutrients that can trigger allergic reactions and food intolerance and impair digestion. Along with the substances that cause flatulence, these are largely neutralized by lengthy soaking, sprouting and cooking. However, it may be a good idea not to overdo the amount of pulses that you eat. It is also important to start with fresh pulses. It is easy to forget how long they have been languishing at the back of the kitchen cupboard because they don’t go off like other foods. Try to buy unsoaked pulses from a shop with a healthy turnover as they are likely to be fresher and take much less time to cook. The older they are, and the harder and drier they get, the less likely it is that a normal length of soaking/sprouting/cooking will make them digestible.
It is advisable to soak pulses for at least eight hours and change the water at least once, preferably more, then to boil them rapidly for ten minutes before reducing the heat to help neutralize their anti-nutrients and make them more digestible. Some types of lentils don’t need soaking to soften, but, nevertheless, it may be a good idea to soak them for an hour or two and boil them rapidly for a few minutes. In traditional Indian cooking, lentils are almost always soaked before cooking and spices such as asafoetida, turmeric and ajwain seeds are usually added to assist digestion further.
Our staple tinned baked beans have a healthy image because of the fibre they contain. Unfortunately, they usually also contain large amounts of sugar, which somewhat spoils their otherwise good nutritional profile.
Never assume that a ready-made beanburger is good for you just because it contains beans. Many such products aimed at the vegetarian market are chock-a-block with ubiquitous processed food ingredients that you might do better to avoid, such as maltodextrin, soya protein isolate (see SOYA FOODS/Is soya good for me?), and chemical colourings and flavourings. If you buy pre-prepared beanburgers, read the ingredients label so that you are aware of exactly what you are eating. Better still, mash some beans with onions and spices and make your own.
How are pulses grown?
Pulses for human consumption are a category of food not commonly grown in the UK or Ireland. Most of the dried pulses we eat are grown in the Middle East, China, the Indian subcontinent, and a few – mainly lentils – in Europe. Pulses are grown as open-field crops. Once harvested each year, usually by machine, but in peasant production, by hand, some pulses simply need to be podded. Others need to be processed to make them edible: they have their husks removed mechanically or can be soaked or steamed to soften the husk as a prelude to removing and splitting the pulse.
Are pulses a green choice?
As a general rule it makes sense to eat local, or at least UK- and Ireland-grown foods as much as possible, but strictly applied this would mean no pulses, apart from dried marrowfat peas. But despite this, pulses do seem to fit in with an environmentally aware diet. Pulses usually come by boat and/or road, which is less of a concern than air freight. They can be stored at ambient temperature, so no energy-intensive refrigeration is required. The compact nature of pulses means that they take up relatively little storage space when being transported, and because of their sturdiness require only minimal packaging. Being the opposite of perishable, pulses generate very little in the way of food waste. Once cooked or sprouted, tiny amounts of pulses produce generous quantities of edible food. Although pulses do not contain as much protein as meat, they do contain much more than most plant foods, so they are a progressive option for those who want to reduce or avoid consumption of grain- and soya-fed, factory-farmed meat.
‘MARXIST LENTILLISTS’
Eating dried beans and lentils came into vogue in the 1960s along with flower power and hippies. Until then, the range of pulses eaten was restricted to marrowfat peas, red lentils and yellow split peas, most of which were sold as minor ingredients in broth mixes for traditional broths, not cherished in their own right.
The wholefood gospel of this period preached a preference for plant foods with a strong critique of meat-eating. This agenda was passionately advanced in Frances Moore Lappé’s bestselling 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet. Lappé introduced vegetarians to the idea of combining high-protein vegetable foods, such as pulses, with other plant foods, such as brown rice, so that their combined amino acids would provide vegetarians with ‘complete proteins’ like those found in meat.
This philosophy spawned a wave of vegetarian dishes that mimicked popular meat classics by substituting pulses for meat, such as lentil lasagne, beanburgers and red dragon pie, the vegetarian answer to shepherd’s or cottage pie, which is made with aduki beans instead of beef or lamb mince. These western vegetarian ‘analogue’ recipes bore no resemblance to the traditional usage of pulses in many foreign cooking traditions, where they are valued in their own right, not as a meat substitute, and the gastronomic image of pulses suffered as a consequence. Quips about ‘Marxist Lentillists’ and ‘sprouting your own sandals’ followed.
In more recent years, western vegetarian cooking has moved further away from the concept of meat substitutes and borrowed more from culinary traditions that make many inspired uses of pulses. From French cassoulet through to Mexican re-fried beans, pulses are no longer seen as the sole preserve of meat avoiders.
Where should I buy pulses?
Wholefood shops, Middle Eastern, Indian and Pakistani grocers usually have a much more comprehensive range of pulses than supermarkets. Wholefood shops are best for organic pulses. Indian and Pakistani grocers commonly stock an impressively wide range of various types of lentils.
Will pulses break the bank?
Pulses are a gift to people who need to produce a lot of food for very little money. Some of the world’s most sustaining, cheap foods revolve round pulses, dishes such as Indian dhal, Italian pasta e fagioli, or British lentil soup. It’s no coincidence that pulses figure prominently in poor person’s cooking the world over.
By swapping, or partially substituting pulses for meat products, you can substantially reduce your food costs. Instead of having a pile of cheap, factory-farmed sausages with some sweet tinned baked beans on the side, you can produce a bean or chickpea stew, flavoured with a small amount of higher welfare, better quality sausage/chorizo/black pudding, and still be quids in.