So far, I'm proud to say that I've only got one failed soup and it was spectaular. I spend 18 hours soaking beans in a pot, and other 85 minutes boiling the damn thing. I added two whole onions, one red onion, three spring onions, a tin of chopped tomato, half a leak, three table spoons of mild chili powder, two table spoons of tomato puree... and then I added the beans. I boiled it all for about 10 minutes... and the bloody thing was so bland it was almost tasteless. So I added in more salt (which I always try to avoid), I added more chili, chives and boiled for another 5 minutes, sturring it all together... still almost totally tasteless. So I added about 400g of beef, and more chili and tomato puree. I boiled for another 20 mins, and there was this funny burning smell. So I returned to the kitchen, looked around and there was no smoke at all. So I relaxed a bit, and sturred the pot to be sure. I left it for another 4 mins and the smell increased. A bit desperate, I returned to the kitchen, and looked at the mixture again. It looked perfectly normal, I tasted it. Well it had flavour now that's for sure. It was like eating thick black smoke. I wacked the thing off the heat, dragged the pot to the bathroom, and emptied the whole lot down the toilet. Instantly thick black blooms of smoke started billowing from the sauce pan, I closed the bathroom door to avoid triggering the fire alarm, I turned the shower on and sprayed the whole thing until it stopped hissing.
It turned out that all the beans had settled on the bottom of the pan, had absorbed all the heat, and turned into about 1 cm of thick black carbon. Took me the best part of an hour to scrub the pan clean again!
So now, I'm a little paranoid about sturring. Always sturr, never leave the pot alone. I've got the laptop setup beside the cooker now so I don't get bored. I don't think I'll try that bean mix again until I do some more research into it. They acted as almost pure anti-flavour itself!
I lay upon my bed one bright clear night, and gazed upon the distant stars far above, then I thought... where the hell is my roof?
