I'm not sure what it is I like best about beans — whether it's the eating of them (so rich, so delicious, so complementary to other flavors) or the preparation. It's involved cooking, but not so much that it demands an entire afternoon.
They're perfect for a lazy winter day: Chop some vegetables, stew them in oil, add the beans, add water, bring to a simmer, cover and bake until tender.
Most of the time, I don't soak beans before cooking them; I can never seem to think ahead enough to start preparing them the night before. So I prepared three batches of beans one afternoon. Besides the unsoaked, I fixed a batch that had been traditionally pre-soaked and another that had been quick-soaked (bring to a boil, sit for an hour, then cook).
Not only were the unsoaked beans convenient, they were delicious, so much richer and more flavorful than the soaked beans that there was no mistaking them.
Soaking dried beans does nothing for flavor or digestibility. The one thing it does is cut down on the cooking time, but just how much depends on how old and dried out the beans are.
Part of the cooking process with dried beans is rehydrating them — having them absorb enough water that they soften. The drier the bean, the longer this will take. Soaking jump-starts this process.
In the best-case scenario, if you buy your beans from a store that sells a lot of them, so the stock is fresh, soaking will save you 40 to 50 minutes.
In the worst case, with old, dried-out beans, soaking could save a whole lot more time.
The type of bean matters, too. Lentils and split peas, for example, cook so quickly, they never need soaking. Chickpeas, on the other hand, are so tough that I wouldn't dream of cooking them without soaking first.
As for flavor and texture, to me, there is no comparison. Having cooked soaked and unsoaked side by side multiple times, I can't find any difference in the number of split or broken beans.
Where I do find a huge difference is taste: To me, beans cooked without soaking are much deeper and richer in flavor. Part of this is the broth, which is thicker and much more flavorful. But the broth is so thick it can be a bit "clingy." So when I'm cooking beans for a stew-type dish (which I usually am), I don't soak. But if I'm making something like a bean salad, where I want the beans to be separate, that thinner broth is an advantage.
And now, for the most delicate matter. Those well-known digestive difficulties inspired by beans happen in large part because they contain certain complex sugars (called oligosaccharides); the small intestine doesn't produce the enzymes to break these down. These sugars pass undigested through the gut and stimulate shock and awe when they meet bacteria in the lower intestine.
When people tell you that soaking reduces flatulence, they're operating under the mistaken assumption that the bean leaks those sugars into the water. But that doesn't make much sense when you think about it. Those sugars are the food the bean plant will need to sprout. Releasing them all before the plant has had a chance even to germinate would be self-defeating. A recent paper found that you have to soak the beans for three days to get a significant reduction in sugars — and by that time, the beans are almost sprouting.
The good news is that you can buy enzyme replacements at the grocery store — Beano — which will reduce the unpleasantness.
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