Bean Sprouts

The Culinary Arts program at Alvin Community College often needs bean sprouts for some classes in International Cuisine.  If you have tried to find bean sprouts in grocery stores, recently, you know this can be a futile exercise.  Most stores do not carry them anymore due to food borne illness outbreaks associated with sprouts.
There are canned bean sprouts available, shudder, but their texture and flavor is not correct.  So, when we need sprouts, we wind up sprouting our own.  We can control the growing conditions giving us the ability to limit the chances of bacterial growth.
A local grocery store carried organic mung beans.  A half cup of raw mung beans generates a gallon of sprouts.
The following pictures are from a recent batch of sprouts.

Day one:  Raw Mung beans.  At this stage the beans are washed, drained and then covered with cold water.  They are left to soak overnight.

After soaking overnight, the beans are drained, rinsed and drained again.  At this stage you can see the beans are starting to lose their outer cover as they start spouting.  From this time the beans/sprouts
are rinsed and drained twice a day.

This is day three of the process.  You can easily see the sprouting process occurring.

Day four the process is further along.

Day five the sprouts are developing nicely.

Day six they are ready for use.

Ahh, a nice bowl of Pho.

I hope you enjoyed this journey in the life of a sprout.  The end results were quite tasty!

Until next time:
Bon Appetit Ya'll
Chef Leslie Bartosh