Legumes, including peas, beans and lentils, are present in all of our Botanical Blends. Why? It’s simple: when you look at a meadow, you instantly see that there are legumes growing naturally everywhere within it. For example, vetch is a wild pea that grows widely in meadows in the UK and provides little edible peas that are extremely nutritious. Not only are most legumes high in protein as a plant-based option, but they are also great sources of fibre, which is important for digestion. Legumes really must be either cooked or fermented over time and then baked, because eating them raw can actually be toxic. This list of legumes for Botanical Blends is an example of the variety and diversity I prefer to incorporate into my breads.
One of the benefits of including legumes in our blends is that, because they take longer to break down, the carbohydrates present in them release more slowly, which is great for blood sugar levels. One of the things we want to avoid when consuming bread is a spike in our blood sugar. Fermenting legumes also actually changes the structure of the insoluble fibre present. Insoluble fibre can cause problems for people who have IBS, but the long, slow fermentation essentially breaks down the insoluble fibre and allows for easier digestion (as seen in this study and this one, both by Marco Gobbetti). Legumes also provide an increased diversity of fibre. Beans, such as red kidney beans, have high levels of polyphenols that are extremely beneficial to our gut microbiome. Studies show that fermentation with legumes can help to increase the bioavailability of these polyphenols, especially when lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are present, such as when baking with sourdough. Lentils, meanwhile, are high in both protein and fibre, and they also contain high levels of iron.
When we talk about eating a rainbow, nothing brings this rainbow to life quite like the variety of legumes on offer to us, including yellow split peas, red kidney beans, blue peas and black lentils. Together they provide an incredible array of colours that are visually stunning.
I am not the first person to think about including legumes in breads. Friedrich Accum, a 19th-century chemist, discussed the use of legumes in bread in his 1821 book A Treatise on the Art of Making Good Wholesome Bread of Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley and other Farinaceous Grain, writing: ‘Their ripe seeds afford the greatest quantity of alimentary matter. Their meal has a sweetish taste, but they cannot be made into light porous bread without the addition of a portion of wheaten flour. Their meal, however, though it forms a coarse and indifferent bread, neither very palatable nor very digestible, except by the most robust stomachs, is yet highly nutritive.’ The historical significance of this is clear: even in the early 1800s, bakers were using legumes in their bread.
When purchasing legumes for your botanical blends, I suggest checking any Asian grocery shops nearby, as they typically have a wide range and variety of legumes, often sold in larger quantities. My best piece of advice for incorporating legumes into your blends is to make a mixture of them in a large jar: then you can just add a small scoop of them to your blends as needed. I have a ten- or twelve-bean mix at the Sourdough School, stored in a lovely jar that people are always drawn to because it is visually beautiful.
It’s important to note that legumes are very high in nitrogen, which hugely speeds up the fermentation process. Do keep this in mind as you increase the proportion of legumes in your blends. Most of our Botanical Blends include 3–5 per cent legumes. Some of our blends do have higher proportions, even up to 100% legumes. There are many recipes featuring these blends in The Sourdough School: Sweet Baking. Just remember, the more legumes you add in, the faster the fermentation – but at least it is the bread fermenting, and not you!
List of Legumes:
| Adzuki beans Alfalfa Anasazi beans Appaloosa beans Asparagus beans Azufrado beans Badger peas/Carlin peas Black beans Black-eyed beans Black kidney beans Black lentils Black nightfall beans Blue peas Borlotti beans (cranberry beans) Broad beans (lima beans) Brown lentils Butter beans Calypso beans Cannellini beans (white kidney beans) Carob Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) Dwarf peas Edamame beans | Garden peas (English peas) Green beans Green lentils Guar beans Haricot beans (navy beans) Hyacinth beans Lupin seeds Mangetout (snow peas) Mung beans Peanuts Pigeon peas Pink beans Pink lentils Pink peas Pinto beans Red kidney beans Red lentils Soy beans Sugar snap peas Tamarind Wattleseed (Acacia) Wax beans Yellow lentils Yellow peas |
