In any case I hear that throwing the water in which beans have been soaked is important. I got this tip in a Sanjeev kapoor cookbook, which explains that soaking, draining and then cooking beans destroys the anti nutritional factors like tripsin inhibitors. Tripsin inhibitors reduce protein digestibility and by draining the bean soak water, the digestibility of beans improve. The tip specially mentions that draining water in which beans are soaked is good because that water can do more harm than good.
Moving on, this soup was something I created when I was in the mood for soup one day. I used pinto beans in this, because I love the texture of pinto beans and I thought it would go well with the other flavors and vegetables in this soup. It did work well and both R and I enjoyed this soup with some crusty store bought bread.
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Ingredients and Method to make Bean and Barley soup
1 cup dried pinto beans soaked for 6 hours or so with a pinch of soda (the soda is optional)
1 medium onion cut fine
1 inch ginger minced fine
1/2 cup pearled barley
2 medium tomatoes cut fine
2 large carrots cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1 1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
4 small bay leaves
salt to taste
1 tsp red chili powder (or to taste)
2 tsp cumin powder
4 cups vegetarian vegetable stock or water (I used water)
2 tbsp oil
4 tsp lime juice
handful cilantro (coriander leaves) cut fine for garnish
Drain the water that the beans were soaked in, fill container with fresh water and pressure cook or cook
on stove top until beans are soft but not mushy.( I use the pressure cooker ). Keep cooked beans aside.
Place pearl barley in a container, fill with water, swirl with hand a couple of times and drain water. Keep barley aside.
Heat oil in a large heavy bottomed pan, add onions and saute until onions are transparent.Add minced ginger and stir a few times.
Add tomatoes and stir until tomatoes are cooked and mushy.
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Add bay leaves, all the spices and stir a couple of times.
Add carrots, corn, barley, salt to taste and water or stock and allow the vegetables / barley to cook.
When the vegetables and barley get cooked and soft, add the cooked pinto beans, adjust water to achieve required consistency and let the soup simmer for another fifteen to twenty minutes for the flavors to come together.
Just before serving add lime juice and garnish with cilantro leaves and serve hot with a crusty bread of choice.
Serves approximately 3
Notes
You can substitute red kidney beans (rajma) instead of pinto beans if you want.
This soup is off to the MLLA 22 event being hosted by Ruchika originally started by Susan
This soup is also off to the No Croutons Required event being hosted by Jacqueline this month.
