Know Your Legumes

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Know Your Legumes(cont.)

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  Red Lentil
  This lentil has a great color but cooks fast, as it is sold with its skin removed (unlike other varieties such as the French green lentil), and will disintegrate if you overcook it. Red lentils are used in many cuisines, from Indian to Ethiopian, and have a mild flavor.

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  Rosa de Castilla
  A medium-sized, lightly textured bean similar to the Silvia Flor de Junio. Sando says it’s great cooked with lots of vegetables.

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  Green Lentil
  Probably the most common lentil on U.S. supermarket shelves (and sometimes labeled as brown), it is starchier than the French green lentil, and will fall apart with long cooking. It cooks fast, which makes it good for a quick weeknight lentil soup.

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  Giant White Lima
  Lima beans are named after the Peruvian city of the same name where they were encountered in the 16th century by European explorers. Often sold frozen or dried (pictured), limas are starchy, buttery, and mild-flavored. They’re sometimes called butter beans.

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  Black-Eyed Pea
  This relative of the mung bean has been cultivated since ancient times but is probably best known for its role in Southern cuisine. It’s said to bring good luck if eaten on New Year’s Day.

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  Kidney
  Commonplace, the kidney bean is great for chili or red beans and rice, and is also a go-to bean for salads like this classic three-bean picnic salad. Never eat kidney beans raw, sprouted, or undercooked, as they contain a toxin that is destroyed during cooking.

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  Black Beluga Lentil
  Similar to the French green lentil but black, this tiny pulse is named for its shiny resemblance to caviar when cooked. It has a mild-earthy flavor and a firm texture as long as it isn’t overcooked. Try it in soups or as a bed for fish.

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  Flageolet
  A narrow, small, French variety of bean. “People like it because you can cook the heck out of it and it still stays whole and creamy,” says Sando. Try using it in this classic French cassoulet. Flageolets are great paired with lamb—Sando loves them as a bed for a braised lamb shank—and are often served with fish in France.

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  Soybean
  Cultivated in China for thousands of years but only grown in the United States since the early 1920s, the soybean is now used in the production of many products, from tofu to miso, and is valued for its high protein content.

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  Yellow Eye
  A small, dense bean that’s creamier in texture than a standard navy bean and has a unique gold-and-white pattern. Use in place of other small white beans such as in this baked bean recipe. Sando says the yellow eye is a classic East Coast “chowdery bean” that pairs great with pork.

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  Garbanzo
  (a.k.a. Chickpea)
  This round, nutty bean is common in Middle Eastern dishes like hummus and falafel and Indian fare such as chana masala. It has a firm texture when cooked and is most commonly seen in its beige form (shown), but there are also black, brown, and even green varieties.

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Roxanne Webber is an associate editor at CHOW.