Most People Are Cooking Beans Wrong (Dominican Tricks for Perfect Habichuelas)

Your habichuelas take hours and never soften, or they split and go to mush, or they sit in salty broth and still taste flat. You did everything you were told. The problem is that half of what you were told is backwards. I'm Rosa. I cooked for twenty-four years in a Dominican kitchen in Washington Heights, and before that my mother ran a comedor in San Francisco de Macorís, where the bean caldero never left the back burner. Here are the seven things she knew, and the first one is going to start an argument in your house. The method, so you can keep it: • 1 lb dried habichuelas rojas (red kidney beans), about 8 cups water • 1 tbsp salt in the water at the START • 1 cup auyama (Caribbean pumpkin or kabocha), in chunks, in with the beans • Full rolling boil for at least 10 minutes first (red kidney beans need it to be safe), then the lowest trembling simmer, lid cracked, 1½ to 2½ hours until soft • Soaking is optional; unsoaked takes about an hour longer • The guiso, only after the beans are soft: 2 tbsp oil, 3 tbsp sofrito, 1 tbsp tomato paste, fried about 2 minutes until the paste darkens • Beans and their broth go into the guiso; mash the auyama and a spoonful of beans against the pot; 15 to 20 minutes until the broth coats the spoon • 1 tsp oregano and a handful of cilantro at the end • Never pour out the broth. Keep and freeze them in it. Were you taught the salt-at-the-end rule too? Does your family put auyama in? And where is your family from in the DR? I read every comment. Next video: espagueti dominicano, the way it is made in the Heights.