What are you preserving by less common methods?

[ORChick]

I'm bumping this up because I finally remembered my salted beans, and decided to give them a try tonight. I put a couple of pounds of green beans in a crock, surrounded and covered in pickling salt, last September. I opened them up today, and was very pleasantly surprised: the beans on top were looking a little shriveled, because they weren't completely covered in salt anymore. But those underneath look pretty much the same as they did when I put them away 5 months ago. The salt was moist, but never did form much of a liquid brine. I pulled out enough for dinner, and have them soaking right now to rid them of some of the salt. I packed the remainder back down in the crock, and added more salt. From looks alone I would definitely consider this a viable preserving method. I'll let you what they taste like.

 

[freemotion]

 

[ORChick]

OK, here we go, the Great Salted Bean Experiment!


As mentioned, the visual was very appealing, very similar to how they looked when I put them in the crock in mid-September. A few on top were a little (very little) shrivelled, as their moisture had been withdrawn by the salt, and they weren't able to re-absorb it because of their position in the crock.
I soaked some of the beans for about 3 hours in cold water, but was kept from getting back to them during that time, so I didn't change the water as perhaps I should have - though it might not have made much difference.
I covered them in fresh water, and brought them to a boil, and cooked them until done but still crunchy.
Right out of the cooking water they were extremely salty.
I'm on my own tonight so was able to experiment . I made a quick chicken noodle soup, with some stock that I made the other day from a stewing hen. I added about half the cooked beans, and let them cook in the broth for a few minutes. End result: the soup was nicely seasoned (only added salt was from the beans), and, as long as I made sure to get no more than one bean piece at a time on my soupspoon, was quite edible. The beans were still very salty, but the soup was not oversalted. (And, as I have mentioned before, I am extremely sensitive to salt, hardly ever use it in my cooking or on my food)
With the rest of the cooked beans I heated some olive oil in a pan, sauteed the beans a bit, adding large pinches of red pepper flakes and the herb savory (Bohnenkraut in German; literally "the bean herb"). The result smelled divine, but I couldn't eat more than a few bites.
So I would say that this was a pretty good way to preserve beans if one likes salt, and if one can use the beans in a way as to take advantage of their saltiness.

Final grades 1-5:

Visual appeal - 5
Texture - 5 (still crunchy, like fresh)
Use as stand alone vegetable - 0
Use in a mixed dish - 3 (depending on the dish, of course)

Comparison to other forms of preservation - canned - Salted beans were much nicer, very like fresh in looks and texture
Frozen - Frozen win this one, just because they are not salty, but some of the forgotten beans lost in the bottom of the freezer would certainly lose next to the salted ones.

Would I do this again? Yes, I think I very well might. But I would use them as a seasoning agent, not as a vegetable in its own right.

 

[freemotion]

I plan on making some fermented dilly beans this summer. That would be a less salty way to preserve them. Hmmmm.....why not just ferment some? Whole? Of course, they would taste like pickles, not like beans. But not so salty.

Sounds like my feta....very salty, but grated very fine and sprinkled over buttered popcorn....dangerous!

Thanks for the great bean experiment! Glad they didn't expland all over your kitchen!

BTW, I love salt, and get dizzy and then migraines if I go too long without it. I might find those beans to be just right.

 

[ORChick]

Has anyone here ever dehydrated fresh green beans? I think that may be my next experiment.
Free, the dilly beans sound good, but, as you say, they are "pickles" not "beans"

 

[old fashioned]

This is an insteresting thread. I've heard salting is a way of food preservation, as in ham's & such.
I wonder if they may not be as salty if you had been able to change the soaking water a few times.
Thanks for the idea, I'll have to try that out too, and maybe with other veggies as well.

As for dehydrating fresh veggies, I know I did that several years ago as an experiment, but I don't remember if I liked the results. I do know I had also dried potatoes, but they turned dark since I didn't pretreat them and I think that's why I haven't done it since. This too will be on my "experiment" list.

 

[miss_thenorth]

My grandmother salted her beans. Mom said she pulled them out of a crock all winter long. Growing up, my mom (who did not salt crock her beans)still added alot of salt when she cooked beans, b/c that's how she thought they should be. I like salt, but I also like my beans plain. I might try this one day.

 

[ORChick]

An update on the salted bean experiment --- I had the rest of last night's soup for lunch. The broth was saltier than before - no surprise there . But the beans were much nicer than last night - still salty, but not excessively so. I could eat several at a time, where last night I had to limit them to one at a time on my spoon. I would never salt fresh beans to that extent, but I can easily imagine that others might. I still have beans in the salt crock, so I will be trying this again - but with a much longer soaking time, and several changes of water.
This is beginning to appear like a very viable way of keeping green beans long past their season without the electricity or hassle of freezing or canning.

 

[lwheelr]

Pease porridge hot - this was the fresh soup
Pease porridge cold - leftovers, the next morning
Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old - this was NOT just soup that had been sitting around for nine days (that would be pretty hairy...). This was soup that was reheated at each meal, which killed the bacteria, and eaten hot again.

So over time, the taste and texture changed. You can notice this now if you make Split Pea Soup with Ham, and have leftovers that you keep in the fridge (the breakdown process is slower, but you get the idea). The soup on the fourth day is distinctly different than on the first day, the flavor and texture are different.

With the old traditional soup, they'd make up a big pot, and at first, it was fresh, and tasted bright. They left it to cool, and bacteria worked on it until the next meal when they heated it up, and served it again. The bacteria would break down the pieces, soften them, make the flavors more mellow, and ripen any meat in the pot, so the complex of flavors and changed. Generally all of the textures would get softer and softer over the time period. So the soup at the end was a different soup than at the beginning. Hence...

Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot, nine days old.

I don't know if this was freshened with new ingredients as they went along, or not.

 

[Wallybear]

I use my frost free refrigerator to dry my jerky. After I have brined it, I lay it on a cooling rock on a cookie sheet and put it in the refrigerator. The refrigerator draws the moisture out of the meat. Works with anything you want to dehydrate. It is already on to cool your food so you are not wasting any energy to speak of.