When you're cooking dried beans, the freshness is important. Dried beans will keep indefinitely, and will cook up into a digestible and nutritious product, but once they've been around for more than a year, they tend to remain a bit dry and gritty, no matter how long you soak them or cook them. Look for brands that date their beans (e.g. "2012 Harvest") or find a store whose customers buy a lot of beans. Hippie-dippie co-ops are good. I usually stock up on beans when I visit the Indian grocery -- while most of their customers are buying 20 lb bags of various beans and lentils, they do carry 2 and 4 pound bags, and I've never run into old, gritty legumes there.
You can cook dried beans without soaking them, it just takes longer. America's Test Kitchen recommends soaking dried beans in brine overnight to reduce the number of split skins, and it has worked when I've tried it. I usually start chick peas on a weekend morning, when I can wander by the crock pot and check on them occasionally. I always cook up 2 lbs, and freeze 2 cup containers, for creamy slow-cooked chick peas in quick week-night meals.
Today I decided to try flavoring the chick peas with smoked turkey wings. I haven't entirely figured out whether tonight's braise (Swiss chard and tomatoes) or tomorrow's soup will get the meat from the wings.
2 lbs of dried chickpeas
2 smoked turkey wings (1 1/2 to 1 13/4 lbs)
4 bay leaves
3 quarts of water
Salt to taste
Working in good light, pour about 1 cup of the chickpeas at a time onto a clean plate. Pick out any broken or discolored beans, and transfer the keepers into the colander. When all the beans are in the colander, rinse them well with cold water. (The beans I buy in American supermarkets appear to be pre-washed, and I never get any starch off of them, but the lentils and beans from the Indian grocery often need rinsing.)
Place the chickpeas in a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker. Place the bay leaves and turkey wings on top. Add the water, cover, and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 4-6 hours. If the lid of your slow cooker is loose, you may need to add water. After the minimum time has passed, stir the chickpeas and taste one. Keep cooking until the chick peas are tender with no grittiness when you chew.
Remove the turkey wings to a plate to cool for shredding.
Scoop the chickpeas into freezer containers or bags with a slotted spoon, cool, and then freeze.
Bean cooking liquid is often discarded because it's full of the starches that cause flatulence....but this is so nicely flavored with the smoked turkey that I'm saving it to make a soup.
