I guess you can overcook beans after all
The couple of times that I've cooked beans now, I have been sort of frustrated by how long they take to soften up, despite soaking them for a long time before (often overnight). I had soaked them for even less time today---only 10 hours or so---and I was determined not to slightly undercook them again, so I filled the pot with as much water as possible (to let it cook as long as possible without running about of water), turned the heat way up, and sat down with some Arabic videos at the table and let it cook away.
Well, when they had been furiously boiling away for a while, it finally occurred to me check on them, and I could tell something was a little wrong. They were slightly denatured. They were split, and their (surprise!) white insides were showing, a little. And there was still tons of water. Okay, I told myself, I always did want a little more "sauce" out of them than I got the last couple of times. So I stirred in the onions and garlic I had made and spooned the watery legumes over my rice.
Meh, yeah, it was okay, but slightly less cooked and slightly thicker sauce would have been better. There wasn't anything really wrong with them before, so I'm not sure why I thought it was reasonable to so drastically overcorrect.
Live and learn. At the least it was probably a $2 meal.
