Borlottie Beans

[grahamhobbs]

Odsox, presumably you grew the Cannalloni beans - may I ask what are they like both to grow and to eat? As you may have read on another thread I tried butter beans this year but found them difficult in terms of getting them ripe, then dry enough to store. Runner beans and Borlotti seem fine, I've never bothered eating the beans from the french beans I grow, they seem a bit small to eat, but then I grow varieties for their pods not their beans.

[Odsox]

They're easy enough to grow Graham, probably easier for you than me.
The ones I grew were supermarket dried ones and they turned out to be dwarf plants. They grew and produced loads of beans but due to them being dwarf and my high humidity, they tended to go mouldy and even the pods that didn't had unappetising brown streaked beans inside.
I now only grow climbing beans so that the air can circulate easily and reduced it to three varieties; Fasholt French (black seeded) for early pod crop, runners and climbing borlotto for dried.

[chadspad]

Do these Borlotti Beans have to be dried or can they be eaten straight from the plants? If you can use them fresh, do they take a long time to cook or are they just like standard beans? Seems from this thread theyre used mainly in stews and long cooked things.

[Millymollymandy]

No they don't have to be dried! They are much nicer fresh from the plant and like broad beans you can eat them small and young or wait until the beans have coloured up and are a bit bigger and eat them fresh then. I freeze them fresh and think they taste much nicer than dried ones. Fresh they only take about 5 mins to cook - and they don't have horrid skins like broad beans.

[Christine]

I agree - they're incredibly good value. Eat the whole pod when young or the beans at any stage up to and including dried. I didn't know you can freeze them, though, and that's an excellent idea - the squirrels scoffed much of what I left to dry on the plants.

[Millymollymandy]

They freeze really well and being a podded bean there's none of this possible sogginess or rubberiness that you sometimes get with frozen french or runner beans (pods).

[Odsox]

We are having some for dinner tonight, perfect comfort food for a winters night.
3 handfuls of dried Borlotto beans, a handful of dried onions, a handful of dried mushrooms, some chopped potato and sausages slowly simmered in spiced tomato purée.

[seasidegirl]

Responding to post by Christine.

On the packet of seed I grew it said that the pods of berlotti are inedible. Are you sure they are safe to eat?

[Christine]

They're edible while still young and green. Later on, they acquire pink spots, and at that stage they'd be too tough to eat.

[julie_lanteri]

I remember my grandma and great-grandma using fresh borlotti beans (haricot coco) in the traditional summer pesto soup.

[mystichippie]

This year is the first year I'm growing Borlotti beans and reading these posts I am now looking forward to trying them thanks