Boiled Green Kentucky Coffee Beans
A foraged legume that has to be boiled hard before it is food. Worth the fuel if the tree is near camp.
- calories
- 230
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 38
- protein
- 9 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 20 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 65 min
- water
- 1500 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Snack
- Campfire coals
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Day one only
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Green Kentucky coffee tree pods | about 1 lb of pods | deep green to yellow, mid to late August; beans inside must still be bright green |
|---|---|---|
| Water for boiling | 1.5 L | plus a second change if you have the fuel |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | carried in a dropper bottle |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Black pepper and chili flake | to taste |
Method
- Identify the tree first. Gymnocladus dioicus, big flat pods, doubly compound leaves. If you are not certain, walk away and eat something else.
- Split the pods with a knife and pop the beans out. Discard the pods and the sticky pulp around the seeds. You want a couple of cups of green beans.
- Rinse the beans in cold water until they stop feeling slick.
- Bring 1.5 L of water to a hard boil with the salt. Add the beans and hold a real rolling boil, not a simmer, for 45 minutes.
- Test one. It should be soft all the way through, like a cooked fava. If it is still firm or chalky, keep boiling. Undercooked is not an option here.
- Drain, return the beans to the dry pot, and toss with the oil, garlic powder, pepper, and chili flake over low heat for a minute.
Green Kentucky coffee beans are one of the few wild legumes big enough to be worth the labor. The mature seeds are famously armored and are usually roasted; the unripe ones are soft enough to shell with a pocket knife, which is what makes them a camp food instead of a project. Late August is the window. Once the pods go brown and hard, the recipe is over for the year.
The long hard boil is the whole recipe, not a suggestion. Raw and undercooked seeds from this tree make people sick, and forty-five minutes at a genuine rolling boil is what fixes that. Drain the water and do not drink it. After that they behave like any cooked bean: bland, starchy, and improved almost entirely by fat, salt, and heat, which is why the oil and garlic go in at the end rather than the beginning. This one is day-one only, because you are eating something you picked that afternoon.
Packing
Nothing to pack but oil and spices in a small kit. The beans get harvested at camp, so bring a knife and a pot that holds at least two liters.
Variations
- Mash the drained beans with extra oil and salt for a spread on crackers.
- Boil, drain, then crisp them in a hot skillet with more oil until the skins blister.
- A squeeze of lemon concentrate at the end cuts the starch.
https://foragerchef.com/kentucky-coffee-beans