The Bean Book | Book Review

Review of Steve Sando's-The Bean Book: 100 recipes for cooking with all kinds of Beans,  from Rancho Gordo Kitchen  

Title - The Bean Book: 100 recipes for cooking with all kinds of Beans,  from Rancho Gordo Kitchen

Author - Steve Sando

Genre – Cookbook

Format - Ebook

Pages- 290

Publication Date - Sept 10, 2024

From the founder of the acclaimed Rancho Gordo bean company, an authoritative guide to 50 bean varieties and how to cook with them, featuring 100 classic and modern recipes.

Learn how easy it is to cook beans from scratch with the king of beans. Rancho Gordo beans, the legumes with a cult following and Bean Club waiting list more than 20,000 names long, brought attention to heirloom bean varieties through chefs like Thomas Keller and Marcella Hazan.

Founder and owner Steve Sando, with twenty-five years' experience in growing, sourcing, and cooking with beans, is the perfect home cook to present classic recipes as well as new combinations for all kinds of eaters. With more than 100 recipes, there are vegan and vegetarian dishes like Fennel, Potato, and White Bean Soup with Saffron and Pizza Beans as well as full-on meat-lovers' meals like Napa Valley Cassoulet, Southwestern Chile con Carne, and Clay-Baked Pacific Cod Gratin with Onions and White Beans.

The Bean Book includes instructions for cooking beans using multiple methods, then transforming those cooked beans into satisfying dips, soups, salads, mains, sides, and desserts. There is nobody better than the man behind Rancho Gordo to share recipes, tips, and historical background in a beautifully photographed, comprehensive collection, sure to be a classic.

Book #59 of 2024

Non-fiction #35

I picked up this book as we are a huge fan of any beans. We have a variety of beans here and thought it would be great to add a few more varieties and recipes to the mix.

The introduction gives us a background on the beans, how to grow heirloom beans, the cooking process, the spices and herbs that will make the recipe glow, etc.

The 50 heirloom beans with the pictures and descriptions were useful in identifying them as they have different names here.

There are about 100 recipes under 8 categories. The recipes come with an introduction to the dish, a list of ingredients, serving size, cooking instructions, and variations, and some recipes have a substitution beans list and even a vegetarian variation. There are recipes from several cuisines that sound interesting.

The book has a lot of vibrant and colorful pictures of the ingredients as well as the recipes. It would have been nice if all the recipes had an accompanying pic of the dish so that people new to that cuisine would know what the final dish would look like.

Most recipes are made using heirloom beans, many of which are unavailable where I live. There are vegetarian recipes that I would like to try out but I will use a substitution beans.

 

It's a good book if you like beans and want to try out new recipes with them.

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