My New Favorite Beans

[elleng]

'I always keep a large supply of dried beans in the pantry. (There are a few tins of canned beans, too, but only for emergency use.)

Seeing an assortment of different kinds there is somehow reassuring. I want old-fashioned pinto beans and black beans, for starters, and it’s nice to stock a few types of heirloom beans, too, outrageously hued varieties like Scarlet Runner or Jacob’s Cattle.

I need white beans too. All supermarkets carry navy and Great Northern beans, but there are lots of tastier options: gigandes, tarbais, hija, aurora. Go for the kidney-shaped cannellini bean or hefty corona beans, two particularly versatile types.

My new favorite heirloom white beans are the small, round Italian purgatory beans, fagioli del purgatorio, which have a tender, creamy texture. Purgatory beans have been cultivated in the Lazio region of Italy for centuries, ever since the first ones arrived from the New World. They are eaten year-round, but tradition calls for whole villages to gather on Ash Wednesday and eat the beans communally at long tables.

Cooked quite simply, simmered with a few sage leaves, the custom is to eat purgatory beans plain, with a sprinkling of salt and a generous spoonful of fruity olive oil. Actually, I would say that’s the perfect way to eat any good dried beans. From a purist’s point of view, why would they need anything else?'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/dining/white-bean-stew-recipe.html?

White Bean Stew With Carrots, Fennel and Peas

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018666-white-bean-stew-with-carrots-fennel-and-peas

[BamaRefugee]

1. try Peruano beans

if you find them, nice creamy white beans

[dem in texas]

2. Mayocoba Beans

This is an ancient variety of Mexican beans dating back thousands of years. When cooked, they look like pink pinto bean and are probably the ancestor of the pinto bean. They are a popular Latin American variety and are sold in the dry bean section of Mexican grocery stores.