Read the kidney bean page before making this. Dried red kidney beans contain a lectin that ordinary cooking destroys and gentle cooking does not, and this is the one recipe on the site with a hard safety rule attached to it.
Never use a slow cooker for this dish. The Food Standards Agency is explicit that you should not slow cook raw red kidney beans, because it does not destroy the toxin and may increase its toxicity. There is no version of this recipe that is safe to leave ticking over at a low temperature.
It is marked untested — it has not been cooked and photographed by anyone, and
the site does not pretend otherwise.
Note the numbers before you start: 150 minutes and about 3.5 litres of water. That is the honest cost of cooking dried beans, and it is why this is marked as a pantry recipe rather than a trip one. Made with two tins instead, it is the black bean chilli and takes 35 minutes.
The beans, which is the part that matters:
- Cover the beans generously with water and soak for at least five hours. If you have no cool place to soak them, use the hot method instead: cover with boiling water, boil 2 to 3 minutes, take off the heat, cover, and stand for one to four hours.
- Throw the soaking water away. Do not cook them in it.
- Cover with fresh water, bring to a hard rolling boil, and boil for at least 30 minutes before anything else happens. A rolling boil, not a simmer.
- Then reduce and simmer 45 to 60 minutes more until completely tender — they should squash to nothing against the roof of your mouth. Drain.
The chilli:
- Oil in the pan, dried onion for two or three minutes, then paprika, cumin, chilli and garlic for thirty seconds.
- Tomatoes in, cooked down hard for ten minutes until the colour turns brick.
- Beans in, simmer 20 minutes. Salt, then vinegar off the heat.
Serves 6.