I should share my failures as well as my successes. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, I’ve discovered a way not to make tasty beans in the pressure cooker.
I have a tried and true home made recipe for pinto beans I’ve perfected over the years. You can find the old recipe here.
I’m working on converting it to cooking in a pressure cooker. My notes in the recipe said “adjustments may need to be made”. That’s putting it mildly. I should have been thinking more clearly; the pressure cooker requires much less water. My old school recipe cooks them for 2 to 3 hours counting on the evaporation to reduce the liquid content. There isn’t nearly as much evaporation from the pressure cooker. My second problem was timing. I wanted to cook them for 15 minutes. Well, I had the timer set to 15 minutes but forgot to start it. I guessed how much time I lost but evidently under-estimated. The beans were much too mushy.
Oh well. Live and learn.
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| Simple line-up |
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| Chopping the onions |
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| Mis en place |
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| Everything is in; give it a good stir and put the cover on |
The ring is up on the cooker indicating it’s almost at high pressure. I should have started the timer….
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| Starting to come to pressure |
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| Watery beans |
I strained the beans and left back almost a full quart of bean broth. I don’t think we’ll be able to use them as base for tostados or burritos, but they’ll be good as side dishes.
Here they are after removing excess bean broth
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| Excess broth removed |
I’ve adjusted my recipe which you can find here. I haven’t cooked the beans with this adjusted recipe so beware. [EDIT May 25, 2018. I’ve improved this recipe and have linked to the latest/best version.]
Or try Dad Cook’s Dinner variety here. He uses 7 cups of liquid as well.
I’ve only given this recipe 2 stars. I hope to get it back up to 5 with some adjustments. After all it took over two years to get my original recipe where I want it.
Rating: ★★ 2 out of 5 stars. I’ve gotten much better at pressure cooker beans. Try my 5 star recipe