It's a game changer - pressure cooker! Chickpeas in 12 minutes!

mtaratoot · January 10

A few months back I was chuffed to find a nearly new high quality modern stainless steel Fagor eight liter pressure cooker for a song at the Humane Society Thrift Store. Needless to say, I brought it home. It even had both of the original manuals. Wow.

I used it several times to cook beets. I love beets. I don't like how long it takes to boil them. Sometimes I roast them, but for vinegar beets, I like to boil them whole. Their skins slip off, then when cool I slice and add salt, pepper, and balsamic. Oh so good. In the pressure cooker, the beets are done in less than 20 minutes instead of an hour or 90 minutes. Sweet.

I don't cook beans in the summer. I don't cook much of anything inside as it adds too much heat to the house. Well, we're in the cold months. I was a little concerned about using the pressure cooker for beans for fear of the foam creating issues. This cooker has multiple pressure relief vents, so I set my worries of explosions aside. The worst that could happen was a huge mess foaming out from all the relief vents.

A few days ago I soaked some black turtle beans and some mayocoba beans (a.k.a., Peruvian beans, canary beans, Mexican yellow beans....) overnight. I was still figuring out how long to cook them. I let them go just a bit too long if I were going to serve them whole. Fortunately I was planning to make soup. The soup was delicious. I took a quart to a friend who's had the flu all week, and he agreed it was tasty.

Well last night I soaked some chickpeas. Today I cooked them. The took twelve minutes. Twelve. Two tenths of an hour. Well, that plus the time for it to come up to pressure. I took the pot off the heat and let the pressure drop on its own, then opened it up. They were perfect. Perfect.

Game changer.

I ate a few of the beans, but I used most to make a "bean salad." It's just chopped vegetables and beans with a little olive oil and balsamic. I haven't made it since Spring.

I restocked several kinds of dried beans the other day, so I'm set for a couple months. I expect I'll be using the pressure cooker to make beans at least once a week. The speed not only saves time that I need to keep watch and stir, it saves energy because I don't have to leave the stove on that long. I can make the beans with a minimum of water to maximize the flavor left in the beans. Oh yeah. Game changer.

If you have a pressure cooker, what's YOUR favorite things to use it for? This isn't an electric cooker like an insta-pot. It's an old-school stove-top pressure cooker.

Yeah. Game changer!

AnnPT77 · January 10

I assume that the pressure cooker gets around the difficulty with making beans in a slow-cooker, that some beans (especially red kidney) need to be boiled at minimum 212F for 10 minutes to destroy the PHA. That's a plus, too.

I've never pressure-cooked beans. For one, I only have a giant pressure cooker (for canning). For two, I'm scared. I should probably get a modern pressure cooker, sensibly moderate size (though I do like beans . . . ).

mtaratoot · January 10

You can destroy the toxin if you make sure your slow cooker gets hot enough OR boil the beans quickly before you put them in.

If I had a pressure canner, I would for SURE buy several whole Pacific albacore when they're in season. Home canned tuna is a treat that cannot be described. Eight liters is way too small for that. It's not safe to can tuna in a water bath canner.

Years ago I had my grandmother's pressure cooker. Old school. With a weight on top to regulate the pressure. The kind that can indeed become a bomb. The gasket failed. I tried for years to find one and couldn't. I'm so sad I let it go. There are gaskets for them now. This new one is much safer. Fagor has a new name. I think eight liter is the perfect size. It might be nice to also have a smaller one for making just a little something on the smaller burner on the stove. I suspect one of those instant pots would fill in well if you like fancy stuff. I might try brown rice, but it's really not hard to cook, and it cooks so low I don't worry much about it. I also won't bother with lentils; they cook really quick. It might be good for unhulled barley - that cooks much longer than pearl barley. I'm tempted to try potatoes.

I have a friend who converted her dishwasher to a haybox. That's how she makes beans. She gets the pot boiling for a little while, then puts the pot in her dishwasher, closes the door, and goes off on her merry way for hours. She doesn't use it for dishes; it's a dedicated energy saver cooking device.

AnnPT77 · January 10

Obviously, I'm not canning tuna (vegetarian). Some of my family canned salmon and other meats/fish. I used to can more when we gardened a lot, but didn't have a big freezer. The pressure canner was for canning things like carrots, foods that weren't quite acid enough for water bath (like some salsas with low-acid tomatoes and lots of veggies, but no added vinegar or equivalent. These days, with a big freezer (left over from an earlier more gardening-intense phase), I rarely can; and to the extent I do it's just acid things so water bath.

I usually cook up a bunch of beans on the stove in Winter. I figure it does heat the house, but offsets the heating fuel to some extent, so NBD. Also, despite the ridiculous number of indoor plants here, the extra humidity in Winter is good, because it's very dry here in Winter. Then the cooked beans go in the big freezer in 2-cup tempered glass bowls I can stick in the microwave to reheat at other times of the year. It's good to keep the freezer full, especially in an area that can have power outages. (I put cleaned gallon milk jugs of water in the bottom, use them for ice blocks in my cooler when needed, take them out/thaw if I need more freezer space.)

Now, I'm kind of wondering if I kept my mom's old-school smaller pressure canner. May need to search the basement storage. It's the dicey older kind of venting, though, so I'd have to pay close attention.

Family story about old-school pressure cookers: My dad told of a time when his mother used a pressure cooker to cook potatoes. The pressure regulator clogged unnoticed, and blew up those potatoes pretty much all over the kitchen, including the ceiling. Being poor folks, they salvaged the potatoes as much as possible. Dad always said those with the best, fluffiest mashed potatoes the family ever had.

P.S. Since this thread is meandering, I'll mention how much I liked your cucumber video on another thread. Cucumbers have been a personal favorite since childhood, when my regular bedtime snack was a big hunk of raw cucumber alongside a glass of chocolate milk.

yirara · January 11

I simply buy tinned beans. A tin costs about 0.7 EUR and I don't have to waste electricity or time. Though lets be honest: even if I wanted more bean choice I can't get more than 3-4 types canned or dry anyway.

mtaratoot · January 11

I can get more than a dozen varieties of canned beans. Fresh cooked beans taste a LOT better. I can control how much salt is in there. They are cheaper, probably even including the electricity although I admit I don't know how to calculate how much energy my stovetop uses. I buy my dried beans in bulk. They cost $1.10 to $1.20 per pound; USDA Organic is more. One pound of beans makes the equivalent of maybe five to seven cans.

They also sell canned whole chickens. I generally don't eat chickens, but if I did, I probably would NOT buy canned chickens.

yirara · January 11

mtaratoot wrote: »

I can get more than a dozen varieties of canned beans. Fresh cooked beans taste a LOT better. I can control how much salt is in there. They are cheaper, probably even including the electricity although I admit I don't know how to calculate how much energy my stovetop uses. I buy my dried beans in bulk. They cost $1.10 to $1.20 per pound; USDA Organic is more. One pound of beans makes the equivalent of maybe five to seven cans.

They also sell canned whole chickens. I generally don't eat chickens, but if I did, I probably would NOT buy canned chickens.

Oh yeah, I get you. It just makes no sense for a single person, especially if I want to get a dinner on the table in 30 minutes and can't leave a kitchen applying running while I'm out (insurance). Salt is something I can control as there's pretty much no salt in canned beans here. Heck, I had a look at my local supermarket: no dried beans at all, just dried quick cook lentils. Basically, canned I can get kidney beans, chickpeas, butter beans (or whatever they're called) and random brown beans if I'm lucky. That's all. And no dried ones. Beans are just not something commonly eaten here I guess. To be honest: I wish I had more choice here as I own one or two cookbooks on beans and pulses, and just have the standard stuff to cook with.

AnnPT77 · January 11

yirara wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

I can get more than a dozen varieties of canned beans. Fresh cooked beans taste a LOT better. I can control how much salt is in there. They are cheaper, probably even including the electricity although I admit I don't know how to calculate how much energy my stovetop uses. I buy my dried beans in bulk. They cost $1.10 to $1.20 per pound; USDA Organic is more. One pound of beans makes the equivalent of maybe five to seven cans.

They also sell canned whole chickens. I generally don't eat chickens, but if I did, I probably would NOT buy canned chickens.

Oh yeah, I get you. It just makes no sense for a single person, especially if I want to get a dinner on the table in 30 minutes and can't leave a kitchen applying running while I'm out (insurance). Salt is something I can control as there's pretty much no salt in canned beans here. Heck, I had a look at my local supermarket: no dried beans at all, just dried quick cook lentils. Basically, canned I can get kidney beans, chickpeas, butter beans (or whatever they're called) and random brown beans if I'm lucky. That's all. And no dried ones. Beans are just not something commonly eaten here I guess. To be honest: I wish I had more choice here as I own one or two cookbooks on beans and pulses, and just have the standard stuff to cook with.

That's unfortunate, @yirara! I'm on the other side (almost) of the country from @mtaratoot, but it's normal to easily be able to find probably more than a dozen types of beans/peas/lentils here in my mid-sized city, both in cans and dried. With a more dedicated search (in the health food stores, ethnic grocery stores and such), there are probably dozens more.

This is a pretty big bean growing zone (my state is second in bean production in the US), but it's mostly the "mainstream" beans: Navy, red and white kidney, pinto, cranberry, black. I see those in the farmers markets, too, in dry form.

Like you, I used canned sometimes, for convenience - if I need a small amount for a particular purpose or the freezer stock is gone. I do prefer to cook/freeze the dried ones, since that's much cheaper, more convenient and they often do taste better. I'm not troubled by the salt. I do usually rinse the canned beans, but the rest of my diet is so salty that the canned beans' contribution would be the least of my issues, if I worried about sodium.

I have to admit, canned beans (even organic ones) have gotten really relatively inexpensive, it seems like. That would be a good thing for affordable nutrition, if people would eat them.

mtaratoot · January 12

@yirara

I am a single person. I still like home-cooked beans. One reason that this new (to me) pressure cooker is a GAME CHANGER is that I can cook dried beans really fast. Black beans and mayocoba beans in ten minutes. Chickpeas in 12. After that, I can take it off the heat and let the pressure drop, and I don't have to babysit it. It will be warm for quite a while. Easy-peasy.

I do keep canned beans in the pantry. In part it's for "just in case." Every now and then I eat some. I used a can of black-eyed peas for my New Year's Day meal. They are fine, but not as good in my opinion.

I mentioned above a friend who uses a haybox to cook her beans. You can make one of those out of a cooler and some insulation. Boil the beans briefly, put 'em in the box (in the pot), close it up, and go away for hours. It uses only the energy to bring it to a boil and hold it for just long enough to denature the toxins in uncooked beans.

PAV8888 · January 12

Ethnic stores for beans @yirara is what I would try if I was trying (which I ain't cause I don't particularly find them a great value for my buttons unlike the rest of you!) But pressure cooker is interesting!🤔

yirara · January 12

Gosh, a pantry! My worktop space is about 50cm long, and my pantry is the few cupboards in my kitchen that are not filled with cooking and eating utensils. But no, ethnic stores here have about 10 brands of basmati rice, maybe 5 brands of couscous and that's pretty much it when it comes to dry food. Pulses are simply not a thing here. There are also no shops where you buy unpackaged food by weight.

Btw, just checked: I have two cookbooks on pulses: cool beans, and a book on dhal. And one on grains (Grains for every season), which is easier to use if it wasn't for the lack of good selection and good quality of fresh produce. I can get about 15 types of firm potatoes here, mind! All the rest is... shite.

mtaratoot · January 12

I just call mine a pantry because I'm optimistic. It's an oversized cupboard. I have slightly more counter space, but not much, and it's laid out poorly. My house is going on 76 years old, and it was built for mill workers at a local plant nearby.

I wonder how much it would cost me to ship you some mayocoba beans. They are divine.

yirara · January 12

mtaratoot wrote: »

I just call mine a pantry because I'm optimistic. It's an oversized cupboard. I have slightly more counter space, but not much, and it's laid out poorly. My house is going on 76 years old, and it was built for mill workers at a local plant nearby.

I wonder how much it would cost me to ship you some mayocoba beans. They are divine.

Aww, but likely a lot

plus customs and import duties. Lots of years ago I brought black beans along from a business trip to Brazil, and they were a revelation! But yeah, as long as you don't know what you're missing it's fine and I'll stick with my tinned beans. I'm sure I'll move somewhere else again one day, and will have a totally different choice of food again.

mtaratoot · January 14

I soaked beans yesterday. I call them mayocoba beans, but they also go by other names: peruano beans, canary beans, Mexican yellow beans, and Peruvian beans. They are a little like pinto beans, but creamier. Oh so delicious.

I put them in the pressure cooker with the obligatory bay leaves, salt, chiles de arbol, and salt plus some cumin and just a little oil to keep it from foaming. I brought it up to pressure and cooked them for five minutes. FIVE MINUTES!! I think next time I'll just do four minutes. They were so good.

I cooked one serving of short grain brown rice and had a bowl of rice & beans. So good. I wanted more beans, so I chopped up an ounce of some cheese I bought the other day that's not so great on its own. Made for a nice second bowl.

I'm not sure if I'll get the immersion blender out and puree the rest into a thick soup or just leave them whole and either eat them as beans or make another bean salad. I still have some of that garbanzo salad, so maybe I'll have some of that tonight and a little of yesterday's split pea barley soup.

springlering62 · January 16

Two things I’m terrified of, after seeing both explode.

Pressure cookers. Mom’s exploded in the kitchen and left a burn mark on the ceiling that was never repaired, because dad was always fooling with things like…….

Outdoor Gas grills. Can’t even bear to turn one on. Of course, the reason for that explosion was dad, trying to jerryrig it to get hot enough to temper steel for his knife making hobby. 🙄. It was always something at our house, and generally “something” didn’t mix well with a case of beer, involved something flammable, and included lots of colorful cussing.

mtaratoot · January 16

@springlering62

Was he ever known to say, "Hold my beer.... Watch this!"

Modern pressure cookers are much safer. What scares me is propane weed burners. I had one. It developed a leak right near the wand. Talk about potential for a big bad thing. My friend had to go to the E.R. for one. He was burning weeds, and from time to time there would be a little bit of fire that got started. Not a big one - just some small things ablaze. He'd simply stamp them out. No problem. Well, except his blue jeans had some frayed bits, and they must have gotten hot enough to catch on fire. Years later he still had thin skin from those injuries. Cotton isn't supposed to be that flammable, but he sure got hurt.

May I be a bit of a pedant? Thanks. I knew you wouldn't mind. The term Jury Rigging is a maritime phrase that for some reason often gets misunderstood as jerry rigging. It has nothing to do with tampering with a jury, but about what sailors would do if something broke while out at sea and they had to create solutions with make-shift repairs. A temporary mast is called a Jury Mast. If your ship was de-masted, you had to use the Jury Mast to get home for repairs.

The term Jerry Rig is so widespread, that there actually is another term these days that means "poorly constructed." That phrase is similar - "Jerry-built."

Thanks for humoring a pedant.

Pressure cooker has been put away for several days while I work my way through the leftovers. While I'm waiting for some to heat up even now, I'm having a delicious decaf with a big spoon of unsweetened cocoa powder. What a nice way to relax and watch the last round of freezing rain try to pull down trees in my region.

springlering62 · January 17

mtaratoot wrote: »

@springlering62

Was he ever known to say, "Hold my beer.... Watch this!"

Modern pressure cookers are much safer. What scares me is propane weed burners. I had one. It developed a leak right near the wand. Talk about potential for a big bad thing. My friend had to go to the E.R. for one. He was burning weeds, and from time to time there would be a little bit of fire that got started. Not a big one - just some small things ablaze. He'd simply stamp them out. No problem. Well, except his blue jeans had some frayed bits, and they must have gotten hot enough to catch on fire. Years later he still had thin skin from those injuries. Cotton isn't supposed to be that flammable, but he sure got hurt.

May I be a bit of a pedant? Thanks. I knew you wouldn't mind. The term Jury Rigging is a maritime phrase that for some reason often gets misunderstood as jerry rigging. It has nothing to do with tampering with a jury, but about what sailors would do if something broke while out at sea and they had to create solutions with make-shift repairs. A temporary mast is called a Jury Mast. If your ship was de-masted, you had to use the Jury Mast to get home for repairs.

The term Jerry Rig is so widespread, that there actually is another term these days that means "poorly constructed." That phrase is similar - "Jerry-built."

Thanks for humoring a pedant.

Pressure cooker has been put away for several days while I work my way through the leftovers. While I'm waiting for some to heat up even now, I'm having a delicious decaf with a big spoon of unsweetened cocoa powder. What a nice way to relax and watch the last round of freezing rain try to pull down trees in my region.

Interesting. I always associated it with making fun of Germans during WWII for stuff that didn’t work.

Trust me. My dad never, ever asked anyone to hold his beer. To worried someone would take a slug I suppose. Yet, he managed to cause just as much chaos as those who did. For example the time at our cabin (being gracious in description there) he threw a fistful of black powder in our 60’s hanging metal fireplace. I heard that people were diving out of windows and even the dog had enough sense to get up and run. He came home with no eyebrows from that weekend.

mtaratoot · January 17

springlering62 wrote: »

Interesting. I always associated it with making fun of Germans during WWII for stuff that didn’t work.

So did I, and that's why I misused it for years decades. I thought people who used the correct term were misusing it. I now like maritime stuff, and I have been a lover of words for a long time. Since language is always changing, it may be that we start using jerry-rig. Kind of like we now use "irregardless."

Trust me. My dad never, ever asked anyone to hold his beer. To worried someone would take a slug I suppose. Yet, he managed to cause just as much chaos as those who did. For example the time at our cabin (being gracious in description there) he threw a fistful of black powder in our 60’s hanging metal fireplace. I heard that people were diving out of windows and even the dog had enough sense to get up and run. He came home with no eyebrows from that weekend.

Don't tell anyone, but when I was in college, a buddy used to toss shotgun shells into his cast iron firepleace and we'd duck behind the sofa. It was just #8 shot, so it wouldn't get out of the stove, although it did probably expose us to lead. The "boom" was also not that big since the detonation didn't happen inside a chamber/barrel. It was actually kind of funny. He tells a story of another buddy of his and him down in a jon boat on a pond on his friend's property. They had filled an empty CO2 cartridge (like for a sodastream machine) with black powder, gluing in some cannon fuse, lighting it, and dropping it in the water. I feel bad for the fish. He said the bottom of their feet and their butts hurt for a while, and that dirt jumped up from the bottom of the boat to near eye level.

Guys can sure do dumb stuff, can't we?

When anyone says to you, "Hold my beer: Watch this!" your response should be, "NO! DON'T DO THAT!" A National Park Ranger suggested that at an orientation for one of my Grand Canyon trips.

mtaratoot · January 17

Today's pressure cooker experiment was a modification from a recipe I saw in a library book full of pressure cooker recipes. It was butternut squash soup. I already had a butternut, and I used to love to make winter squash soup when I was in grad school. Inexpensive and hearty. I used to always add a can of mackerel because I thought it went well together, and it added some nutrition.

My modifications started because my squash was bigger than the recipe called for. That's really no big deal. I also added WAY more garlic than it called for, and I didn't saute it with the onions. I also added a serrano chile and a jalapeno. I also added a lot more water than called for. I'd still add more than called for, but not as much as I did. It's fine - just a little less thick. I don't mind. It means I can have two bowls and it's still low calorie. I didn't have any mackerel in the house, but I did have a can of Alaskan wild pink salmon. I also had some sockeye, but the can of Pink was bigger. I added that at the end, skin, bones and all. It's already pretty good, and it will be better tomorrow.

The basics for MY version: Take the seeds out of the winter squash, cut it into pieces that will fit, put it in the trivet, bring to pressure, cook for three or four minutes. Take it off the heat and let it finish cooking another four minutes. Remove the squash and let it cool, then remove the flesh from the skin.

After the squash is cooked, dry out the cooker and add some oil. Saute a chopped onion until wilted. Oh. Yeah. I also added celery. Add that. And the chiles. Simmer for a while longer, then add the coarsely chopped garlic. Lots of it. The whole globe. Add the squash back in along with seven bay leaves, and then add water. Put the lid back on, bring up to pressure, and cook ten minutes. Take off the heat and let finish cooking another ten minutes. Release the pressure. Play the hide-and-seek game to find the bay leaves. Remove and discard. This is why I count how many I add. Use an immersion blender to puree. Break up the fish into chunks, and add to the pot.

That's it.

I put more winter squash on my grocery list. This will be a repeat recipe. Good for when you want something warm and tasty. Next time I make it, I'll use less water. Of course that means I will have to edit the recipe because the final product will have fewer "servings" because every milliliter of water adds an entire serving to this dish.

I got a tare weight on my empty pressure cooker. I weighed the final product and put the recipe into my diary with the number of grams so one gram is one serving. I had 686 "servings" in two bowls for 257 calories and 25 grams of protein.

mjbnj0001 · January 20

mtaratoot wrote: »

A few months back I was chuffed to find a nearly new high quality modern stainless steel Fagor eight liter pressure cooker for a song at the Humane Society Thrift Store. Needless to say, I brought it home. It even had both of the original manuals. Wow. ... Well last night I soaked some chickpeas. Today I cooked them. The took twelve minutes. Twelve. Two tenths of an hour. Well, that plus the time for it to come up to pressure. I took the pot off the heat and let the pressure drop on its own, then opened it up. They were perfect. Perfect. ... If you have a pressure cooker, what's YOUR favorite things to use it for? This isn't an electric cooker like an insta-pot. It's an old-school stove-top pressure cooker.

Yeah. Game changer!

Agreed!

We got our old jiggle-top PC over 20 years ago, and it's still working for us just fine. Dried beans, of course ... with chickpeas we make our own hummus regularly from scratch. I used it mostly to prep recipe ingredients to be used in or with dishes I am making via other methods - whole grains, mostly brown rice and wheat, potatoes, that sort of thing. I've made complete dishes, stews, soups and broths, over the years, but don't do that so much any more via PC alone (stews and soups are more slow cooker or stovetop simmer now - but soups with beans as an ingredient are better using PC beans rather than using canned, and this two-stage approach gets the best of both worlds - the second picture is a recent example of that - note the PC on the back burner behind the soup, one of several batches of soup made this month for "Soupjanuary"). We're also eating less meat, and for that which we do I use other cooking methods.

The reason we got a PC - at the annual sailboat show in Annapolis - was our then-intention, as many boatowners dream, of long-distance cruising. PCs require much less cooking fuel to produce meals. So we tried quite a number of dishes, "rehearsing" for the boat. We got a big PC to practice at home, knowing that on a boat we'd need a smaller one.

We never went cruising, that's a "ship that has sailed." And we now use the PC for fewer purposes than it can be used for - but for those we do, it's great at. I'm glad I don't have an electric one, this is just fine. Never have had an issue, although at some point the seals and o-rings may need replacement. They're still surprisingly in great shape. I don't think our mfg. is in business any more.

For recipes, tips and techniques, we found the book "The Pressured Cook," by Lorna Sass, to be a good reference. I think it can still be found.

You're doing chickpeas in your PC? Try one of the numerous recipes for "pasta e ceci" - fresh-cooked chickpeas rather than canned is another game changer.

mtaratoot · January 20

@mjbnj0001

Presently pondering possibly pressure-cooking potatoes. I'm not sure I'll be enthralled with the texture, but maybe they'll be the bees knees. What kind of potatoes do you usually put through the pressure? I've been doing convection oven "fried" roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, and they're great. I'm thinking smashed potatoes might be good - probably go with red potatoes for those. Any hints from your experiences?

That's a good-looking cooker you've got there.

Beans are a no-brainer. They are fine for days after I cook them. For brown rice I'm still doing the regular stovetop method. I'm just one person eating, and leftover rice isn't as good as freshly cooked. Precooking the winter squash before making the soup was brilliant.

The library book I checked out has almost the same name: "Pressure Cooker Gourmet" by Victoria Wise. Good tips, but she doesn't soak her beans first. Sacre bleu! I always soak. I also salt the cooking water; sue me. For a while I was soaking then letting the beans just barely sprout before cooking. I don't do that anymore.

I haven't had a pressure cooker in three decades. I sort of miss it. I bought a used one in grad school. It never would run on low, so it burned the beans or whatever I was cooking. When it started to give me electric shocks, I decided it needed to "go live on a farm," so I sent it away.

Tonight I made pearled barley and French green lentils. I just used the stovetop since they have different cooking times and I added the lentils after the barley had cooked a little while. No bueno with the pressure cooker.

loulee997 · January 20

mtaratoot wrote: »

A few months back I was chuffed to find a nearly new high quality modern stainless steel Fagor eight liter pressure cooker for a song at the Humane Society Thrift Store. Needless to say, I brought it home. It even had both of the original manuals. Wow.

I used it several times to cook beets. I love beets. I don't like how long it takes to boil them. Sometimes I roast them, but for vinegar beets, I like to boil them whole. Their skins slip off, then when cool I slice and add salt, pepper, and balsamic. Oh so good. In the pressure cooker, the beets are done in less than 20 minutes instead of an hour or 90 minutes. Sweet.

I don't cook beans in the summer. I don't cook much of anything inside as it adds too much heat to the house. Well, we're in the cold months. I was a little concerned about using the pressure cooker for beans for fear of the foam creating issues. This cooker has multiple pressure relief vents, so I set my worries of explosions aside. The worst that could happen was a huge mess foaming out from all the relief vents.

A few days ago I soaked some black turtle beans and some mayocoba beans (a.k.a., Peruvian beans, canary beans, Mexican yellow beans....) overnight. I was still figuring out how long to cook them. I let them go just a bit too long if I were going to serve them whole. Fortunately I was planning to make soup. The soup was delicious. I took a quart to a friend who's had the flu all week, and he agreed it was tasty.

Well last night I soaked some chickpeas. Today I cooked them. The took twelve minutes. Twelve. Two tenths of an hour. Well, that plus the time for it to come up to pressure. I took the pot off the heat and let the pressure drop on its own, then opened it up. They were perfect. Perfect.

Game changer.

I ate a few of the beans, but I used most to make a "bean salad." It's just chopped vegetables and beans with a little olive oil and balsamic. I haven't made it since Spring.

I restocked several kinds of dried beans the other day, so I'm set for a couple months. I expect I'll be using the pressure cooker to make beans at least once a week. The speed not only saves time that I need to keep watch and stir, it saves energy because I don't have to leave the stove on that long. I can make the beans with a minimum of water to maximize the flavor left in the beans. Oh yeah. Game changer.

If you have a pressure cooker, what's YOUR favorite things to use it for? This isn't an electric cooker like an insta-pot. It's an old-school stove-top pressure cooker.

Yeah. Game changer!

If people can't find a pressure cooker, people can look for an Instant Pot at thrift stores. Most instant pots are smaller than a full size pressure cooker. They also have crock pot and a pressure cooker setting. I use the PC setting on mine to make potatoes quickly.

I have limited space and am only cooking for me---so the instant pot does 2 + things and makes smaller portions.

So if you want to pressure cook and can't find one at Goodwill or your local thrift, look for a used Instant Pot (with the lid). It'll do the same thing.

L

mjbnj0001 · January 20

mtaratoot wrote: »

@mjbnj0001

Presently pondering possibly pressure-cooking potatoes. I'm not sure I'll be enthralled with the texture, but maybe they'll be the bees knees. What kind of potatoes do you usually put through the pressure? I've been doing convection oven "fried" roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, and they're great. I'm thinking smashed potatoes might be good - probably go with red potatoes for those. Any hints from your experiences?

That's a good-looking cooker you've got there.

Beans are a no-brainer. They are fine for days after I cook them. For brown rice I'm still doing the regular stovetop method. I'm just one person eating, and leftover rice isn't as good as freshly cooked. Precooking the winter squash before making the soup was brilliant.

The library book I checked out has almost the same name: "Pressure Cooker Gourmet" by Victoria Wise. Good tips, but she doesn't soak her beans first. Sacre bleu! I always soak. I also salt the cooking water; sue me. For a while I was soaking then letting the beans just barely sprout before cooking. I don't do that anymore.

I haven't had a pressure cooker in three decades. I sort of miss it. I bought a used one in grad school. It never would run on low, so it burned the beans or whatever I was cooking. When it started to give me electric shocks, I decided it needed to "go live on a farm," so I sent it away.

Tonight I made pearled barley and French green lentils. I just used the stovetop since they have different cooking times and I added the lentils after the barley had cooked a little while. No bueno with the pressure cooker.

Thanks for the compliment. It's an 8L "Pro Selections" made in Spain, circa 2000. I think it's a new company now, not even sure if still in business.

re: your grad school unit - I'm glad ours is a stovetop PC, I think that is why it has endured, versus all the electric ones people have used in the meantime. And I think it is actually more flexible and controllable. IMHO.

If I do a batch of rice, I usually size it for 2-3 days of leftovers or potential for inclusion into something else. I get leery of older saved cooked rice. Efficiency is good, food safety is better, LOL. I aim for minimal food wastage as well, FYI. In the PC, I cook rice using the excess water method (reduces arsenic).

If you don't have one, an immersion blender is a great tool - for squash soup, it takes it to another level, for instance (actually, blending any veg-based soup - to your desired level of smoothness/chunkyness - gives the end product a lot of variability).

Potatoes, Potatoes. I could write a book, but several others have, at least a few, LOL.

You know the old divide between "baking potatoes" and "boiling potatoes"? Holds true for pressure cooking. It depends on what you want the end result to be. Whole, chunk, slice, large dice, small dice. Skin on, skin off or "skin on to cook, skin off to use/eat." Dry-steamed (held [mostly] above the cooking liquid, e.g., perched on an internal rack or atop a roast for instance) or immersed. Intended to be mashed or blended or eaten as discrete pieces. As a side or included ingredient or the main show (i.e., stew potatoes, potatoes with pot roast, etc., vs. potato chowder etc.). Sweet potatoes (sure, but I always peel). Piece-size uniformity is usually key.

I usually do yukon golds or red skins in the PC. Have done Russets. Have, for example, in prep for mashing for holiday spreads (all the other pots were in use, and the quickness of PC for a large batch of potatoes fit in the organized chaos that was several people prepping dinner, LOL).

I mentioned in prev note that we are decreasing our meat, but are still omnivorous (I was vegan for about 10 yrs - my 20s). But declining our meat consumption. Also, now being seniors, were are adjusting our meals and portions to a new reality. So this means not using this PC as much as previously.

But in the past, I've done potatoes --
-- as mentioned, a side to holiday spreads, where the PC was a convenience
-- for potato-forward chowders of various types
-- in soups/stews of various types, including currys
-- for smashed/mashed potatoes
-- for potato salads, including a deviled egg potato salad
-- for potato-inclusive "one pot" meals - "wet roasts," briskets and poultry dishes
-- more. You are either steaming or boiling the potatoes more intensly or faster than other means, so any application or recipe could be made to fit. Be experimental.

I've been experimenting with stovetop parboiling unskinned quartered baby yukon golds then drying and roasting them for a target crunchy exterior/soft creamy interior. My PC is often sitting on the back burner (still looking for a good place to store it in this new home), so this has had me thinking maybe it's a great vehicle for the first step. But for the two of us, I've been doing simpler stuff (the PC is another thing to hand-clean, at least the top, with the seals and gaskets), and that investigation has so far waited. Our new oven has convection as well, and it's been an interesting experiment so far. I've used it for a few things.

As you go through your library book, you may find recipes where the PC is used in stages or steps, due to the various cooking times of an array of ingredients for the dish. Usually when a hunk of protein and side veg is included, or a mix of hard and soft veg. It's a matter of time coordination. Prep- PC cook - open and augment - reseal and PC cook some more, etc.

Oh - herbs and some spices do better later in the process when doing PC. Sometimes, you do a PC cook then have some sort of "finishing" in the open pot before the recipe is concluded.

Hope this helps a bit. Sorry for the length. As Julia Child used to sign off her show, "bon appetit!"

mtaratoot · January 20

Thank you @mjbnj0001

No need to apologize. I asked! It's a learning experience. It's been 30 years since I had my last pressure cooker. I'd probably still be using it if I had been able to find a new gasket for it way back then.

My cooker is also stainless, and it's visually appealing. It's a Fagor Duo. Apparently the company went bankrupt, but the cooker is still made and now has a brand name of Zavor.

I will for sure try some potatoes. It's a minimal investment. I "discovered" a classic method last year that I really like for roasting. First I boil in water with some baking soda very briefly. That makes a layer of "potato paste" on the outside that soaks up oil so they get brown and crispy. Russet potatoes (bakers) get very crisp, but also very brown. Red potatoes don't get brown, and don't get crisp. Gold potatoes are sort of halfway between them and work well, although I don't mind the brown color. I don't think the pressure cooker will be useful for those. They could be for a salmon and corn chowder I like to make, but it also cooks so quick just on the stovetop, it might not be worth the cleanup. I have two dishwashers in my house. I call them "Lefty" and "Righty." I have to wash everything by hand. I've never lived in a place with a dishwasher as an adult. I haven't had a microwave in 25 years either. Yeah. I'm a weirdo. So it's not so much that I have to hand-wash the pressure cooker, it's just that the size makes it more awkward to wash than a smaller pot, and it has three parts to wash. Well, four if you count the pressure valve that I remove and rinse out every time. Safety first!

That cooker I had in grad school that wanted to electrocute me wasn't a pressure cooker. It was a good ol' fashioned Crock Pot. It should have worked better. I don't think I've ever purchased an electric/automatic cooking tool used since then.

I bought an immersion blender a couple years ago. I'd been thinking about it for a lot longer than that. I don't know why I waited except that I'm a cheap *kitten*. I splurged for a cordless model, and I love it. For sure it makes pureeing soups so much easier. I cycle through a few types of beans and either make a bean salad, a bean soup, or some of each. For the soup, I pull out some whole beans and then puree everything else (except the bay leaves which I discard) including the onion, garlic, celery, and carrot I cook with the beans, then add the reserved beans back for texture. I eat that kind of thing all winter. I don't do much cooking in summer because it heats up the house too much. Well, this pressure cooker might change that because it's so quick. Kind of like saving fuel on a boat, keeping heat out of a house without air conditioning is kind of important. That said, I am so happy when the season comes for eating soups and beans, I might just reserve that for winter anyway. The bean salads though would make really good summer dishes filled with fresh produce from the garden.

Ain't cooking great?

It's a game changer - pressure cooker! Chickpeas in 12 minutes!

Replies

Categories