I take a lot of grief from some good friends for my comments on pressure cooking beans in Heirloom Beans and here on the blog. I don't think it's a horrible thing to do and it certainly is better than canned beans, but it's still not my things, despite being a devoted Lorna Sass fan.
A new customer named Jan writes the following and I wanted to share it with you. Ever doubtful, I'll give it a try. Let me know if you do and what your results are:
Did you know that using a pressure cooker is better than you give it credit in your book?
For a cup or two of beans, soak them in plenty of HOT water with 1 T of salt for only an hour or two.
Pour off the salty soaking water.
To pressure cook them: 3 cups of water to one cup beans with a glug of oil for 10 to 12 minutes under med-high pressure.
Let the pressure go down naturally, 15 minutes. (I use a Fagor 6-quart)
Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt to the warm beans.
Refrigerate or continue with a recipe.
Taste the "liquid" to see if more salt is needed.
I pressure cook the beans for 10 minutes and then continue open
lidded on the stovetop if they need additional cooking time (that's
rare)
beans don't blow up, don't become water bags, hold their shape and
consistency, and are wonderful when speedy is needy. But I will never
argue with you that the teracotta bean pot, Italian or Spanish, is the
best when you have the time.
Cooking methods, my feeling whatever works best for the moment.
So many of my friends here in the D.F. (Mexico City to you) swear by the pressure cooker that you imagine it as the most important piece of cooking equipment in the kitchen. And why not?
Working mothers, daily stress (the traffic is NOT getting better), and the rest make the pressure cooker the way to go to guarantee beans on the table on an almost daily basis.
Whatever works, just make sure there beans, and Rancho Gordo beans if you can!
Can I ask a question too? I have a jar of beautiful beans from last fall that weren’t perfectly dry and there are white spots of mould on some beans. Can I still cook ’em up and eat them?
They are black beans from Mayan gardeners here in Vancouver. They are very precious and I’m kicking myself for allowing this to happen.
I am a huge fan of pressure cooking and have not yet tried Jan’s method. Since my motto is “I’ll try anything once”, I’ll see how the beans turn out.
It seems like Jan is cooking the beans a lot longer than I cook them in the pressure cooker, which is usually only 4 to 6 minutes (for black or pinto beans) with a presoak but not salt soak.
I agree with Ruth — whatever it takes to get beans on the table is a great thing.
4 to 6 minutes is perfect for all thin skin beans and I added that in a later email to Steve. It’s the salt soak that keeps the skins firm, using fresh water for pressure cooking. Soaked black beans 30 min, pressure cooked 4 min, ready for succotash. Jan