Pictured left to right: Royal Corona ($7.50), Christmas Lima ($7.25), Scarlet Runner ($7.25), Yellow Eye ($6.25), Vaquero ($6.25), Ayocote Morado, Midnight Black ($6.25), and Mayocoba ($6.25).
Rancho Gordo's arrived! Purchased 11/14 and delivered 2 weeks later 11/28/2021. 1 lb bags take up about 2.5 cups in a mason jar, so I found myself dusting off quart jars to hold them. I stuck their prep instructions in the jar, but it seemed to be pretty much the same back label on all of them-- soak for 2-6 hours to speed cooking time. There are a couple words about ideal use on the front wrapper, but in a pinch I could reference the website.
Decorative appeal- Since I store bulk items in mason jars in a clear glass cabinet, I would stock the Christmas Lima, yellow eye, and vaquero. Scarlet runners are pretty but do not have the same dark-light contrast that is easy to appreciate. Ayocote morado's are prettier than midnight black turtles, but I am not yet sure if the two are interchangeable for cooking, and I think a red kidney bean I could get at the grocery store is more striking. Yellowish green Mayocobas might look good in a jar soup mix (like Bob's redmill 13 bean soup) as a contrast against a darker bean. I don't yet have a sense for if they can be prepped the same way as other beans and what happens to their color when cooked in a mixed brew. I don't think Mayocobas look that different from a mung bean I could get in the grocery store for cheaper. Bloggers remarked Coronas were interesting because of their huge size, though the size contrast against the limas and runners wasn't enough to stop traffic if I were examining them on the shelf. That said, my grocery store doesn't stock any sort of huge lima-type bean, so Gordo might be my go-to for now.
- my grocery stocks bulk black turtle beans from $1.59-$3.49/lb depending on if they are conventional or organically grown. So are these worth completely cutting over to mail order beans at double the price? My initial impression out of the can was the Gordo's looked dustier and smelled a bit more like manure. Not a great start, but maybe that's what reviewers mean by "they are so fresh!" Hypothetically, fresh beans shouldn't require much presoak time, so I dumped 150g of beans with 700g of water into the Instantpot for the default bean cook time of 30 mins and will compare each batch.
Left side store beans, right side Gordo beans.
It seems that the grocery store beans "washed out" to more of a purple. Their broth also kept more of a cloudy purple cast. The Gordos stayed slightly darker black. Some of them had "exploded" out of their shells more. The broth stayed a darker color despite the beans also holding onto more color. Blind taster, DH feels grocery store beans were cooked more thoroughly and would vote for them.
Verdict: Sprouts black turtle beans > midnight black.
Experiment #2: taste test Royal Coronas with default preparation
This was an overnight soak, IP for 30 mins with a handful of salt, allow to sit on "keep warm" for a while (2:45 hrs).
They did plump up a bit with the soak (top row vs dry bottom row). Perhaps not the doublish proportions that some youtube fans suggested.
After cooking, a few of these "exploded" with broken skin which detracted a bit from plating appeal. They taste great and could see myself eating more total volume of beans with these or a similar giant scarlet runner type of bean in the rotation.
I may try feeding these to the toddler to see if she bites... 12/7: she didn't but DH said they were pretty good for a weirdly oversized bean. Likes them much more than the favas [which I might not have been preparing correctly].
"Experiment" 3 Attempting a salted soak of Christmas Limas. I'm curious if they will keep their color when cooked. End goal is to dump them in chili in 4 days, but they may not last that long. (12/8)
12/9. I love how salty these came out. The dark definitely bled into the white, but you can still see a pretty decent contrast.
12/10. Grandparents snacked on these for dinner and said they were fine. Kid nibbled, but didn't devour these the way she used to pound beans as a just-on-solids baby.
12/14. These were the favorites for me and hubby in the chili. I added them to a salad the next day. There are still some fitpacker Vaqueros left, but I went for a pre-loaded mason jar of oats on this cold, rainy day.
"Experiment" 4 Vaqueros in a less salty soak with less "keep warm" dwell time. (12/11) These were to add a bit more variety to the chili recipe with Christmas Limas tomorrow. I was surprised at how much these plumped up. The contrast was more noticeable than the Royal Coronas. The white mellows out in the broth, but they still keep some of their pattern. Taste out of the pot was fine, the beans split and insides were creamy while the skins themselves stayed a bit tough. I think I prefer Christmas Lima mouth feel. Perhaps this toughness was because I reduced dwell time in the pot from 4+ hours to 40 minutes. My go-to with vaqueros might be to immersion blend them in a bit of broth to make a bean dip rather than serving as a patterned bean. (12/15) These were fine in chili, but not as standout as Xmas in terms of size. I stuck some in tacos last night just to get through them. Tasted fine.
"Experiment 5" Scarlet Runners soaked overnight, lighter salted than Christmas Limas, IP for 30 then about 1.5 hours of dwell time (12/15/21). Liking these. They plumped up well and have the same look cooked as the Christmas beans once the broth washes out the white. If they are easier to grow than Christmas, that would compensate for them looking pretty but a little less striking in the jar.
"Experiment" 6 Morado soaked overnight, lightly salted in IP for 30, then 30 mins or so of dwell time. Adding these to a chili. These plumped up a lot in the soak and made the difference in seed sizes more noticeable. The purple washed out of them to more of a tan after cooking. Tasted fine in chili dish. The plains were still a little chewy in places, not sitting in a tomato broth for a couple more hours.
"Experiment" 7 Peruano (1/1/22) soaked these 16ish hours, lightly salted in IP for 30, then 90 mins of dwell time. They came out really mushy, but maybe that's ok for blending into a hummus-like dip? The grocery store stocks this type, so it wouldn't be high priority to grow it from seed.
Experiment 8: Sprout off (1/1/22) I put 10 of each type in a shallow tray of water to see if any would actually sprout. So far, I'm worried about the Coronas that rehydrate unevenly and split in 2.
Calculated germination. (1/9/22)
100% Scarlet Runners, and seem to be furthest along in root structure
100% Ayocote Morado. Though these wash out to pinto bean colored brown.
100% Christmas Lima beans, not quite so far along in root structure and counted some iffy ones as sprouted.
70% Yellow Eye
70% Vaquero
35% Coronas
20% Mayocoba
0% Midnight black... hadn't plumped and had some weird spittle like bubbles. Pretty sure these are a bad batch if this is marketed as better than grocery store turtle beans.
2/6/22: the first group of sprouted beans I transplanted outside into the pretty deeply shady area north of the new garage without anything like thorough labeling. These seem to have largely pole habits based on the runners they almost all threw out. The challenge was this is on the dogs side of the fence and our dogs love snacking bean leaves, ideally while trying to make eye contact with you from an adjacent camping chair. I've put together a pretty rudimentary trellis, just some serpentined chicken wire I was too lazy to properly stake down. I also started sprouting more of the limas-- Christmas and Scarlet runner beans. These had a 100% germination rate this time. 6 or so of each went into small plant start containers. The remainders went into the flower beds with peas along the redwood fence (on the dog side still) as a thing to replace the peas the kid has been scrutinizing daily.
8/7/22: Scarlet runners seem to be the winner in the yard. I've got them along the driveway fence and in the box planters along grand dude's fence. Neither of these get reliable water, so I've been taking the spent dried beans they do produce and seeding them into non-germinating seed trays on the mister table to get more "land race" runners. I love the orange flowers and the colors of the seeds.
