Pressure Cooking Dried Beans

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?JMZRE 29 October 2011 Pressure Cooking Dried Beans

Most of the dried beans purchased from a bulk food store were pressure cooked and play a large part in my diet. Beans must be thoroughly cooked to digest without difficulty. It is almost impossible to over-cook dried beans, except the whole white common navy beans which I do not use, due to its high starch content.

Method: Selected are about four cups of a mixture of all the beans,which makes a lot of finished product. The beans are washed and boiled vigorously for about 20 minutes. The water from boiling is discarded and the beans rinsed. The beans are placed in an colander insert and placed into the pressure cooker. The rim of the pressure cooker is wiped with vegetable oil to prevent the gasket from sticking. In general never use a pressure cooker without an insert, which will prevent bubbling particles from clogging the rocker port and prevent the safety port from blowing out. A blow-out spreads a mess all over the kitchen, and takes about two hours to clean up.The insert prevents water from touching the beans, thus they are steam cooked at 15 PSI for about 90 minutes.

After the beans are pressure cooked, they are placed in a pot and the pre-prepared condiments are added as per your choice. I use ketchup and molasses as a base and add almost anything available to suit my taste. The beans are then boiled gently for about 30 minutes to insure adequate mixing. The pressure steam cooked beans will absorb a lot of water so add the necessary water to get the consistency desired. After cooling, those that are not for immediate use are placed in plastic containers and frozen until required.

[Milims]

Thank you for that Durgan - I do try to go for dried beans but they are scary - so they end up sitting in the cupboard instead! Think I'm going to be saving myself a fortune on tinned beans from now on!

[Green Aura]

Sounds a bit fiddly Durgan.

I just put a kilo bagful in cold water covering them by a good couple of inches and pressure cook at full pressure for about 20-30 mins (depending how long I've had them) then turn off the heat and leave them to cool down - they continue cooking for a while as they cool.

Then I freeze them in 3 person portions.

[Durgan]

Sounds a bit fiddly Durgan.

I just put a kilo bagful in cold water covering them by a good couple of inches and pressure cook at full pressure for about 20-30 mins (depending how long I've had them) then turn off the heat and leave them to cool down - they continue cooking for a while as they cool.

Then I freeze them in 3 person portions.

I wouldn't eat your beans.

[greenorelse]

Ah! I get it now, sorry Durgan. You steam pressure cook, I see now why you have to cook for so long - I hadn't realised. In another thread, I said that I soak them overnight or longer then cook them for four minutes max. This is because I cook them just covered with water. That explains everything.

That aside, one culinary pleasure is to take a couple of tablespoons of freshly-cooked beans (still cooking really, straight from the pressure cooker) in a mug and sprinkle a good organic shoyu on them. Food of heaven.