The Veggie Queen's Profile
pressure cooker beans vs. stovetop cooked beans
I cook beans many times each week in the pressure cooker to save time and to have great tasting beans. I like to presoak them before cooking but they can be done from dry.
Unsoaked black beans will take about 25 minutes at pressure. And contrary to what Rick Bayless (who I know and respect) says, the beans will be incredibly flavorful, especially if you add some seasonings, and the texture will be wonderful.
One of the keys is to use the "right" amount of liquid which is usually a 2 to 1 ratio of water to beans if not soaked. I usually use 1/2 to 3/4 cup of liquid per 1 cup of soaked (drained) beans at pressure for the recommended amount of time.
I teach pressure cooking and have written a book on it. I use my pressure cooker almost every day so I hope that I know something about it.
And sueatmo is correct: you can use your pressure cooker for many other things too from your breakfast steel cut oats (in just 3 to 4 minutes at pressure) to risotto, soups, stew and chili. It's the best kitchen pot I own.
Favorite Pressure Cooker recipes
The Fagor Duo Combi wiht a 4 and 8 quart set is great for anyone who intends to cook 2 dishes at close to the same time.
I have been teaching people how to pressure cook for more then 15 years and once people are hooked on pressure cooking, they often buy the set.
Do I need a pressure cooker?
I am a vegetarian and have been pressure cooking and teaching it for the past 15 years.
Fear not with your pressure cooker. It will be safe and easy as long as you get a decent model spring valve cooker such as Fagor, Magefesa or B./R/K, or other model mentioned below.
Besides beans which are easy to do, you can make all kinds of whole grains, soup, stew, chili, vegetables, 3-minute steel cut oats.
Lorna Sass is my pressure cooking mentor and I love what she does. I just wrote a vegetarian (vegan) pressure cooking cookbook. I don't think that I can mention it here because it is shameless self-promotion but it has cooking charts for all kinds of beans, grains, rice, vegetables and recipes from breakfast through dessert,
A pressure cooker can help everyone save time, money and energy and eat lots of beans without paying a fortune or worrying about BPA in the cans.
Have fun with it.
Need pressure cooker advice NOW. Anyone on who knows how to cook with them?
I'd love to hear how your beans turned out.
I recommend presoaking (with or without salt, I prefer no salt) the beans, draining and then cooking pinto beans between 4 and 6 minutes at pressure with a natural pressure release. I think that at 15 minutes they would be falling apart and too mushy for my liking.
You can always put them back on the heat but you can't make them less done. I guess that you could always turn them into Spicy Pinto Bean Dip if you needed to.
It's great to see so many more people pressure cooking these days. I have been teaching people how to do this for 15 years and maybe the time has finally come when more people will pressure cook regularly.
Electric Pressure Cooker, anyone?
The vegetable results depend upon what you are cooking and for how long. The issue with leaving your house, your pressure cooker and your food is the food safety and what temperature your cooker maintains.
Also the electric cookers generally only get to 8 or 10 PSI (pounds per square inch), when the stove top models get to 15 at high pressure. I have not yet converted and see why it might work out to have an electric but most dishes cook so quickly, that I like to get the entire meal together in less than 1 hour at most.
You cannot let your meat dishes sit in the pressure cooker all day due to food safety reasons anyway so...
Electric Pressure Cooker, anyone?
An electric pressure cooker is a super hot pot that will cook food very quickly. You can cooked soaked beans such as black, pinto or kidney in less than 10 minutes at pressure.
I teach pressure cooking but much prefer the stove top cooker to the electric models because I cook a lot of vegetables and they require more precision cooking. If you want to do more soup, stew and chili, the electric cooker is probably just fine. Many people love them.
Pressure Cooker Recipe Translation Help
Great advice Paul. I don't use a whistling pressure cooker either yet I know how long chickpeas take and cook them for that amount of time which is 12 to 14 minutes if they are soaked.
Most hard vegetables such as potatoes and winter squash cut into small pieces take no more than 3 minutes at pressure.
I much prefer to use a modern pressure cooker with a spring valve and leave the whistling type in India.
Dessert Risottos
I use nondairy milk for my dessert risottos and it works out great. My favorites are almond, hazelnut and coconut milk.
Nothing like almond coconut risotto in the pressure cooker. Yum.
Pressure cooker or slow cooker?
I am a huge pressure cooking proponent and couldn't likely live without mine very long. Well, I guess that I could if I had to. You can make grains and beans in the pressure cooker so fast and easily it's amazing.
I tell people that if you are a person who can think ahead about what you want to make, a slow cooker is probably fine for you but I like spur of the moment cooking so prefer the pressure cooker. Also, the flavor that comes out of the pressure cooker is incredible.
I just got a Vita Clay rice cooker to check out and it seems like an alternative that might work for you. It is a faster slow cooker that is programmable and more.
I have used the Fagor 3-in-1 and since I do not like non-stick interior in my products, I prefer the clay rice cooker that also cooks soup, stew, etc. Clay is a natural material that works wonders. But my first choice -- my Fagor stainless steel stove top pressure cooker in any size.
pressure cooker
That is a great price on a well made pressure cooker. I would be sure that it's a true spring valve or pop up and that it's not a modified jiggle-top (which means that you have to pay more attention). Could't really tell.
They do have very thick bottoms and you can cook everything from your morning steel cut oats to stews, whole chickens and cheesecakes for dessert. Makes 5 minute mashed potatoes and 6 minute lentil soup.
I love all my pressure cookers.
Good luck and have fun.
Finally made chicken stock in the pressure cooker
RWC, I think that you mean 10 quart, Fagor not 10 cup which would be very small. Can you email me privately at jill@pressurecookingonline.com so I can catch up with you about your pressure cooker success?
Stock is amazing in the PC and it saves a lot of money, too. Creative reuse at its best.
Are dried beans made in a pressure cooker as good as canned?
The answer is NO. The pressure cooked beans are better. You get to add as much or as little salt as you like, and season them however you want. You make a lot at once. As has been said, you can cook them to your liking. To repeat, a lot depends upon the age of the beans.
The other benefit is that you can cook heirloom beans, that they sell at Rancho Gordo, and get wonderful and unusual beans. Their beans are usually no more than a year old and cook up quickly in the pressure cooker -- usually between 4 and 10 minutes at pressure with a natural release, if you want to keep the beans looking good. If you are making hummus or bean dip, cook them longer and they get softer, and are ready to get mashed or blended.
One of my students figured out that what she saved by cooking her beans in the pressure cooker versus buying canned organic beans would pay for her PC in less than a year. I'd love to hear your results.
pressure cooker
I'd suggest buying a Fagor Duo Combi or a Futuro set. They each come with 2 cookers and 1 lid. And you could buy a 10 quart Duo or Futuro to use separately. I agree about the 10 quart being awfully large. I prefer the 6 or 8 quart myself. Macy's often has them on sale, and I do, too, but can't compete with Macy's. Fagor are the best made of the reasonably priced cookers.
Pressure Cookers and what's your favorite? [Moved from Home Cooking board]
The Fagor U Cook set is the sleeper of the Fagor line and extremely popular in Europe where kitchen storage is an issue. I agree about the Camry issue and which PC to purchase. I describe it just that way except I say that the other ones (Kuhn Rikon, WMF and Fissler) are the Mercedes of cookers. I am fine with a more standard car, and PC, myself.
Fagor Futuro Pressure Cooker
It's good to know that there are other people who are up on the pressure cookers. I use my Fagor cookers all the time and do not have any steam coming out of the valve on either the Duo, Elite or Futuro models. As soon as the cooker is at pressure, I turn down the heat and keep it at pressure. And it works great.
The Kuhn Rikon, WMF and Fissler are all much more expensive than brands such as Fagor or Magefesa. So, I say that if you must drive a Mercedes or BMW, then the Fagor might not be your best choice. For functionality, all these brands are about the same. Size, shape, style may help you determine which one(s) to buy. The sets are a very good deal.
I prefer the Duo to the Elite. I like the 2 pressure settings, for the rare time that I might use 10 psi.
What brand/size pressure cooker should I get?
If you've got to drive a Mercedes, then you might want the Kuhn Rikon. The Fissler is also a very high quality pressure cooker. For everyday use, and more like a Camry or Honda, is the Fagor. There Futuro model is sleek, sexy and European. Another one to look at but harder to find is the Magefesa. A 4 quart cooker might be OK but a 6 quart is a much more versatile piece. Take a look at them. All the new models work the same way, and which you choose is often a matter of price and styling. They are great. Have fun.
Pressure Cookers and what's your favorite? [Moved from Home Cooking board]
I'd love to see your column or a link to it as I teach pressure cooking. Not sure what the Fagor digital is. Can you explain?
I have a You Tube video on using the pressure cooker, too.
What's not to like about pressure cooking?
Raw hominy
Are you saying that it gets soft enough and doesn't need any kind of soak in lye? How long do you cook it in the pressure cooker? It sounds great to me. I had an incredible pozole soup with Marrow Fat or cranberry beans made by Eric Tucker of Millenium Restaurant that was just fabulous. I'd love to recreate it.
Electric Pressure Cooker?
The pressure cooker is fast and it does contain the aroma of foods. I would NOT though recommend cooking the food and letting it sit in the pressure cooker as it's a food safety hazard.
You can make great soups in less than 30 minutes from start to finish in the pressure cooker, and they taste like you cooked them all day.
No pressure fryer for me.
Electric Pressure Cooker?
I have not used the Cuisinart cooker but hope to. The Fagor is just OK. And once you get so many appliances, none of them are the BEST. I have Fagor stove tops and use them almost daily. I agree they are wonderful.
I have a new pressure cooker--what to make?
The best time savings are for meat and beans. Make a pot of your favorite beans. Presoaked black, kidney or pinto beans take about 4-5 minutes at pressure with a natural pressure release. Garbanzo beans for salads take 12 or 14 for hummus.
Brown rice is 22 minutes at pressure with a natural release, 1 1/2 cups water or broth for 1 cup rice.
The possibilities are pretty endless. Keep using it and you will get the hang of how to do it. With vegetables, time is very important. Less so with beans and meat but it's better to undercook and put it back on than to overcook.
Good luck.
Electric pressure Cooker Recomendations?
There is a yahoo group that is all about pressure cooking. Many of the people on it have electric cookers. They went crazy over the Wolfgang Puck cooker that was on the Home Shopping Network.
Personally, I prefer the stove top models as the pressure gets higher and cooks faster, even though it does require some watching.
The delayed start is not suitable for meat, though. For food safety reasons you cannot leave meat dishes at room temperature (actually between 40 and 140 F.) for more than 2 hours.
Although the Cuisinart is round, I know a number of people who really like it.
Good luck in your search.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
It's impressive that you use it every day. I use my 4-quart Fagor a lot but when I want to make a few cups of beans, the 4 quart is just too small. I find that it's even difficult to make enough vegetable soup to have any left over. I use my cooker a lot for cooking once, freezing and not cooking the next time.
I always tell people that you can cook just 1 cup of rice (not always so efficiently, though) in any size cooker but you can't fill the others more than one-half to two-thirds full, depending upon what you are cooking.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
Any pressure cooking is better than none. You are not a heretic. I, for one, am all for people doing whatever works for them.
The Indians (from Asia) use them because they eat lots of legumes and don't have much fuel. They are essential cooking equipment for them, and could be here, too.
I have a website also but I believe that I am not allowed to post it.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
You are correct that vegetables don't take that long conventionally versus the pressure cooker. But when you can make vegetable soup in 3 minutes at pressure with all the vegetables looking vibrant, it's amazing. Yes, it does take some time to get to pressure but that's what cooking is about.
I have to admit that I usually use less liquid than the recipes call for and the pressure comes up rather quickly.
The quick release is for foods that would overcook if you left them too long which I recently accidentally did with some new potatoes which really only required 2 minutes at pressure, not the usual 3. I had mashed potatoes --- delicious but not what I had in mind.
Keep using your cooker, you might warm up to using it more.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
Do you really have a Fagor 12 quart? I thought that the biggest that they come is 10 quart, which is plenty large.
I am a Fagor fan, too. And have a whole bunch of them, using my 4 and 6 quarts the most.
I say that pressure cookers are for people who want to know what they can cook right now. Slow cookers are for people who can and want to think in advance, and don't care if their food is mush.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
I highly recommend Fagor as being the best value for the cost. You want to likely either get a Duo or Futuro, the latter being the more sleek, European-type pot. A good all around size is a 6-quart, although you can do just 1 cup of rice or beans in an 8-quart.
Some people really like their Kuhn Rikon cookers and others WMF. I have use the KR and they are good but more expensive than Fagor. I have no experience with WMF. Magefesa can also be OK but you have to have a good idea of which model you want and I can't very easily discern one from the other.
After about 5 years of almost daily use, I finally had to replace a gasket in one of my Fagor cookers. Your cooker can last you a lifetime as it basically does not have moving parts. The gasket is about it.
You will likely be happy that you got a cooker. It changed my cooking life.
Should I get a pressure cooker?
As someone who teaches pressure cooking, I can elaborate on why you might want to use a pressure cooker, reiterating some of the responses below -- time savings, energy savings, and add that generally the nutrition value is higher because of the faster cooking, and usually using the liquid that you've cooked in. But for me one of the top reasons that I use the pressure cooker has to do with the texture and flavor of the food that comes out of it.
You can cook carrots in about 2 minutes at pressure (and it really only takes about 1 minute to get it there) and quick release the pressure, and you will see bright orange carrots that are still in the shape which you cut them. The flavor is more intense, and if you add seasonings of any kind they tend to get infused into the food rather than being on top of the food. Lorna Sass, my pressure cooking mentor, summed it up in one of her books, "Two hour taste in just 20 minutes." (Or less, depending upon what you are cooking.)
To address the issue of staying the in kitchen, you do need to stay nearby and have a timer to remind you to go back to turn off the pot. If you prefer not to think about it, you can get an electric pressure cooker that shuts itself off but so far I have not found one that I really like. I am still looking.
I highly encourage you to get a pressure cooker as it sounds as if it will surely meet your needs.
getting into cooking-- what should I get?
I couldn't agree more about the pressure cooker. I use mine everyday. And with rising energy prices and less time to cook, the pressure cooker is an invaluable kitchen tool. Many people find it scary but I think that when you can make GREAT vegetable soup at 3 minutes at pressure, you've got a winner. And as you say, you can use it just like any other pot when you want to and it's stainless steel so works well for any kind of cooking. And you keep the kitchen cool in the summer -- that really works for me.
I do use my grill pan but not that often. It's good only when my grill isn't being used -- cooking over fire is much better.
I do think that a food processor is a good idea. I have 2 sizes and use the little one whenever I can.
You are right on with recommending that you choose what to use based on what you eat. I eat lots of beans, grains and vegetables, and love soup. So the pressure cooker works well. But it would also work if you eat roasts, chops and chicken.
You can tell where my heart lies.
TOFU ... desserts?
I am a big fan of the Soy Delicious decadent flavors which is now called So Delicious. I just had some of their mocha almond fudge. It is expensive but they have lots of great flavors and it being expensive actually helps you eat less of it, and less often. I think that's a good thing.
It tastes best when you let it sit for a few minutes rather than eating it hard.
I have never heard of tofu cookies but do make tofu puddings as described. They are yummy.
Good luck.
