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Want to drop your bean preparation time down to about two minutes? Cook them in a rice cooker. Just put them in with about 3:1 water to bean, press the button,
by spodek 12y ago
Want to drop your bean preparation time down to about two minutes?
Cook them in a rice cooker. Just put them in with about 3:1 water to bean, press the button, and it turns itself off when they're done. Cooking time is still about an hour, but preparation time is a couple minutes.
I add olive oil, salt, and herbs (meat eaters can add bacon, ham, or whatever), which may add another minute to preparation time. You can make several meals worth of beans with a few minutes' effort and a dollar or two of ingredients.
I recommend the Hitachi Chime-o-matic if they still make them.
- haroldp 12y agoIn a pressure cooker, time is under a half hour. I live at high altitude, so no amount of time just boiling in a pot will ever soften dry black beans.
- reitanqild 12y agoMay I ask what altitude, roughly, you live at?
- bunderbunder 12y agoWe've taken to pressure canning dried beans in pint jars. All that, plus the end product is shelf-stable so you can build up a variety of pre-cooked beans in the pantry for convenience.
- mark_l_watson 12y agoNice idea, I will try that. A question though: I have always heard that adding salt to cooking beans makes them tough. Add salt at the dinner table to taste.
- meandthebean 12y agoThe salt thing is mentioned in the article. According to the author it's better to add salt before cooking.