Q: I came across a bag of Lupini beans while cleaning the pantry. When I bought them, the guy at the store told me to boil them then shower with salt, lemon juice and parsley like you might do with fava beans. After coming home, I googled them and read a few things that makes it sound like they need to be boiled/soaked for days on end.
Is that for real? Any suggestions on how to cook and use these beans? And if they take days, are they really worth it?
Sent by Nithya
Editor: Nithya, we have never cooked lupini beans, but we know that they are a classic Italian antipasti, often included on holiday platters at Christmas and Easter. They are fun to eat in a big communal setting, as you have to squeeze the beans out of their jackets, rather like favas.
But lupini beans do have a lot of bitter alkaloids, so you have to find a way to leach those out before they are edible. There are a couple different ways to do that.
• Wise Geek recommends soaking them in a brine solution.
• This blogger gives a recipe where she cooks the beans upfront, but then rinses the beans every day for two weeks.
Both methods are definitely time-consuming, but the Chowhounders seem to agree that it's worth it!
Readers, what do you think? Have you ever eaten or cooked lupini beans?
Related: How To Pick, Clean and Prepare Fava Beans
(Image: Amazon)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
How to Make Fresh Pasta Dough in the Food Processor
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
TW Salt Mill by Wil...
Small Cool Lessons: Discovering Small Space Design Ideas That Really Work
Marisa and Peter's Playfully Eclectic Home
I've never cooked them, but I *love* including them in my marinated olive mixes and purchasing the canned variety in tomato "sauce" for crostini, etc.
I'd love to hear if it's worth cooking them myself since they're not the cheapest in jar/can version.
I've never seen these beans in any form in the UK, but they are extremely common in Spain. Spanish supermarkets sell them cheaply in jars of brine and they are often put down on the tables in bars and at social gatherings. I've never seen them sold raw anywhere.
There's a bit of a knack to popping out of their skins; you make a tiny tear with your front teeth to split the skin and then pop the bean out into your mouth. The bean has a very mild slightly sweet and nutty flavour. They are quite moreish! Whenever we're visit Spain my husband likes to bring a few jars back home.
Before you spend a lot of time and energy saving this bag of beans, know that if dried beans are old (more than a year), they may never become tender.
I've never cooked these. Have only eaten them from street vendors and at bars in Middle East (where they're called tirmis). But they are great and super-addictive, as you get the hang of popping them out of their skins--they make a great snack with beer.
I have also seen them precooked in jars in my grocery store--can't remember where from.
I only just recently learned that lupini=lupine=bluebonnets. Although I don't think Texas bluebonnets are quite the same species that produces the lupini beans. Still--I always thought these were some exotic plant--but not so!
These are very popular and cheap in Portugal... we call them 'tremoços' and they go perfectly with beer... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin_bean