Columnist Christine Burns Rudalevige uses Maine Grains black bean flour to make tortillas for burritos. She fills them with rice, roasted carrots, chicken and corn and tops them with a cilantro and spinach salsa. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

The focused information sessions are the big draw for me at the Maine Agricultural Trade Show in Augusta every January. In the civic center’s breakout rooms (named after Maine counties), I’ve learned about farm succession, farm-to-school food distribution efforts, and the cover crops best suited to pull carbon out of the air and sink it into healthy soil.

But I always make plenty of time to walk the trade show floor. It’s fun to see little kids get excited about the big tractors on display. Plus, I never fail to find a new-to-me Maine-made food product with which I can play in the kitchen. This year’s find was Maine Grains organic black bean flour.

Organic Maine Grains black bean flour. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Amber Lambke, co-founder and CEO of Maine Grains, says her Skowhegan-based company started processing dried black beans into flour about two years ago. Always on the prowl for ways to support farmers in the Northeast who sustainably grow barley, buckwheat, einkorn, rye and a variety of wheat, Lambke has in the last four years built a regional market for a variety of dried beans that Maine Grains’ partner farmers grow in rotation with grain crops. The legumes fix nitrogen into the soil, which helps future wheat crops grow better without chemical fertilizers.

One farmer got a bumper crop of black beans two years ago, Lambke explained. And because Maine Grains has customers looking for both gluten-free and protein-rich alternatives to its existing line of wheat-based flours, the company tried putting the dried black beans through its gristmill. Success! The beans make a fine, light, slightly gray flour flecked with black from the bean skins. Nutritionally, 1/4 cup (about 30 grams) of the flour has about 100 calories, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of protein (twice that of all-purpose flour) and 5 grams of fiber. You can buy a 2.4-pound bag of black bean flour on the company’s website for $16.95.

That is a nice set of nutritional numbers, indeed. But how does one use the stuff in tried-and-true recipes? That’s what I set out to learn as I experimented with the bag I bought at the agricultural trade show. I started with the recipe for tortillas that was printed on the back of the bag. To make the dough, you mix equal amounts of water, all-purpose flour and black bean flour, sprinkle in baking powder and salt, and roll the dough thin enough to form large Chipotle Restaurant-style burrito wrappers (see recipe).

I attempted the same even flour split when I made a gluten-free samosa wrappers with King Arthur’s One for One flour and Maine Grains black bean flour, using a Madhur Jaffrey recipe. I adjusted for the fact that dried bean flour will soak up a lot of liquid — adding 50 percent more water than the recipe called for. Even so, the dough was hard to roll out, hard to form into a samosa shape, and I was frustrated when the filling busted out of the pastry as the samosas baked. As I am not an experienced gluten-free baker, I don’t know which flour to blame for the failure.

As I worked through test batches of my go-to banana bread and one-pot brownie recipes, I learned a few things about how black bean flour works. First, its visual presence is obvious. This doesn’t matter in chocolate cake, say, which disguises the bean flour color, or banana bread, where eaters are used to seeing banana fibers. But stirring it into an angel-food cake, for example, will give the finished cake a more cookies-and-cream look than you may be used to.

Fudgy brownies hold a surprise, healthful ingredient: local black bean flour. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Second, for best results, replace only 25-30 percent of the all-purpose flour called for in a recipe with black bean flour and increase the total hydration by 25 percent.  It’s easier to understand with an example: My go-to homemade brownie recipe comes from Katie Workman’s “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” The recipe calls for 1½ cups of all-purpose flour. I used 1/2 cup black bean flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour. Normally, the only liquid in the recipe is 1 cup melted butter. To ensure moist brownies, I added 1/4 cup of chocolate syrup, as well.

Since the banana spots are already apparent in banana bread, you won’t notice the color of the black bean flour. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Likewise, to make my banana bread recipe work with black bean flour, I replaced 1/2 cup of the 2 cups all-purpose flour called for with black bean flour and added 1/4 cup milk to the batter. In both cases, the results were deliciously moist, and each sweet had about seven grams of protein per serving.

Lambke also suggests using the black bean flour as a low-fat, dairy-free, gluten-free thickener for vegetable soups, where one normally might add cream — which leads me to my last bit of advice about black bean flour. Wash the pots and pans in which you make the dough, batter and soup immediately after use. If you forget, you can expect a seriously stuck-on mess.

The burritos are wrapped in foil before they are baked. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Not Your Average Bean Burritos

This recipe assumes you have a 12- or 14-inch pan in which to make a big tortilla. If you don’t, make six small tortillas, put the fillings out on the table, and call it Taco Night.

Makes 2 large burritos or 6 small ones

For the tortilla:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour or sifted whole wheat flour, more for kneading and rolling
1/2 cup black bean flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup warm water

For the fillings:
4-6 ounces raw chicken breast or thighs, cut into thin strips
3 carrots, thinly sliced lengthwise
1 cup frozen corn kernels
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
½ cup finely chopped spinach
¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons chopped scallions
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chili (such as Fresno, jalapeno, or serrano)
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup cooked white rice
1/4 cup grated cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Whisk together all-purpose and black bean flours, baking powder and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Stir in the warm water to form a shaggy dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Cover the dough with a slightly damp cloth and let it rest for 15 minutes.

Place the chicken, carrots and corn on a sheet pan. Toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the pan in the oven and roast until chicken is cooked through and carrots and corn are starting to caramelize, about 15 minutes.

Take the pan out of the oven and combine the roasted chicken, carrots and corn with the spinach, cilantro, scallions, chilis, lime zest and juice, honey and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Divide the dough in half. Roll 1 half into a thin 12-inch circle. Add 1 teaspoon of oil to a large frying pan and place over high heat. Spread the oil around the pan evenly and place the large tortilla gently into it. Cook on one side until it starts to brown in places and possibly form some bubbles (2-3 minutes). Use a fish spatula to turn the tortilla over to cook until the second side starts to brown (2-3 minutes more). Transfer the tortilla to a plate. Repeat with the second ball of dough.

To assemble the burritos, first spread half of the Greek yogurt in the middle of each tortilla. Continue with half the rice, chicken and vegetable mix, and cheese. Roll each tortilla tightly and wrap in aluminum foil. Cut each in half if eating immediately, or store in the fridge to eat later. Reheat in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes.

The components for the filling are laid out, ready to be stuffed inside the black bean burritos. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald