Recipe error – Chickpeas

The book is Madhur Jaffrerey’s Instantly Indian Cookbook, was published in 2019 by the Borzoi imprint of Knopf and as an ebook in the Amazon Kindle store.

The error in the recipes for Plain Chickpeas at p. 20, Everyday Chickpeas at p. 22, and Chickpeas in Gingery Tomato Sauce at p. 24 is saying soaked (white) chickpeas can be done in an Instant Pot (or any electric pressure cooker/multicooker) in the pressure cooker program at three minutes on high pressure with a 3 minute natural cool down. In these recipes, the Instant Pot is used to sauté onions and make a sauce; uncooked soaked chickpeas are added. I was suspicious about 3 minutes. I set 6 minutes, but the result was crunchy and barely cooked. I put the lid on and cooked at high for another 8 minutes. This produced chickpeas with some texture, barely cooked.

The recipes are fine if the user has cooked chickpeas – either canned or cooked at home. Madhur Jaffrey used cooked chickpeas in several recipes in At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (2010) (in the UK, Easy Curry). She regarded canned chickpeas as acceptable but cautioned that the sauce or canning fluid was not good and should be rinsed off the chickpeas. except for some organic brands.

Dry chickpeas, even soaked, take more time. In an electric pressure cooker, Laura Pazzaglia’s Hip Pressure Cooking suggests

  • 40 minutes on high for dry chickpeas and
  • 20 minutes on high for chickpeas that have been soaked.

Madhur Jaffrey has a note at p. 20 of Madhur Jaffrerey’s Instantly Indian Cookbook that unsoaked chickpeas can be cooked in an Instant Pot set for 50 minutes of high pressure in the pressure cooking program.

In an Instant Pot, I would cook the legumes first, set them aside, wipe the pot, do the recipe as written and add the cooked chickpeas and give them the three minutes on high to cook some of the flavour into the cooked chickpeas.

Recipe error – Tamale Pie in a Skillet

The book is Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook (2003, republished 2014), Sasquatch Books, Seattle. The authors are Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne.

The error is in the recipe for Tamale Pie, at p. 113 in the 2014 edition, saying this is a recipe that can be done in a 10 inch cast iron skillet. While there are recipes that work in a 10 inch skillet, this needs a 5 quart or larger casserole dish or Dutch oven. It is not a mistake that exposes the cook or the diners to harm.

The error is exposed by adding up the ingredients. It uses three cans of canned ingredients, an onion, a bell pepper and a pound of ground beef. The cornbread topping is a cornbread that can be baked in a skillet – the cornbread will fill the skillet by itself. This recipe is bigger and takes longer than one might expect. I use a skillet to brown the meat and soften the onions and fresh vegetables. I use an enamelled 7 quart Dutch oven as a baking dish.

Perhaps this recipe belongs with stew and chili recipes in a Dutch Oven cookbook, like Kramis and Hearn’s Dutch Oven Cookbook (2006, revised ed. 2014).

Tamale Pie, like shepherd’s pie, is a stew with a topping, finished by baking. A shepherd’s pie is topped with mashed potatoes. A tamale pie is topped with cornbread batter. No corn husks, banana leaves or other wrappers are used to make a tamale pie – it is not a tamale. It is an American chili con carne, a stew that may involve meat, beans, bell peppers, chili peppers, and vegetables. Mexican and Central American versions of chili feature the flavour of chili peppers, and use beans. American versions often stress meat and minimize beans, but there are bean free and meatless recipes. The food processing companies have been making canned chili since canning became a technology in the food industry. Canned chili may emphasize meat, or spice or meat-free. (Bean free canned chili looks like dogfood).

The Kramis & Hearne recipe is a a family recipe. It uses ingredients found in family pantries or supermarkets including ground beef, canned tomatoes, canned chili (for the beans, I hope), frozen corn, a bell pepper, an onion, and garlic. It uses “chili powder” (this normally means a concoction that uses some dried ground chilies, and other spices for bulk). The Kramis & Heane recipe adds cumin, oregano, paprika and crushed pepper flakes; also, optionally roasted poblanos or diced fresh chilis (I use serrano or jalepeno). It is a good recipe. There is enough meat and flavour. I am going to substitute canned or cooked black and pinto beans for canned chili.

Cookbook Errors

Lists of mistakes in the kitchen for home cooks:

Such lists usually don’t mention problems with recipes, writers and publishers:

  • Recipes
    • with philosphical or ideological agendas. I am not a fan of the “Small Planet” recipes and other nutrition centered recipes;
    • promoting demand for devices or ingredients. Some require obscure ingredients or follow culinary trends into blind alleys;
  • Poor recipes – dubious ingredient ideas or planning by the recipe writer;
  • Inadequate instruction;
  • Serious errors – There a references to such errors in printed and broadcast stories. Some address a famous restaurant recipe that does not replicate – the famous Chocolate Nemesis is cited in a 2019 piece by Felicity Cloake in the Guardian, Cookbook errors: recipes for disaster.

More on serious errors. Quotes from Marion Burros’s 1997 NY Times classic column:

The prevalence of errors in cookbooks is the publishing world’s dirty little secret. The problem is likely to get worse as an industry mired in economic doldrums resorts to cost-cutting, practically guaranteeing less editing and testing before publication.

….

”Book publishing contracts are very specific,” said Sydny Miner, the cookbook editor for Simon & Schuster. ”Publishers don’t have any way to amortize testing of recipes, so the responsibility falls on the author. We take it on faith that the recipes have been tested.”

….

Generally, mistakes in cookbooks come to light when they are so egregious that someone following them might be injured. Or if a book riddled with errors was written by a particularly well-known author. Julee Rosso’s ”Great Good Food” (Crown, 1993) was lambasted from coast to coast for its errors.

What book publishers don’t tell you is that they view errors as almost routine. ”Every line in a recipe is an opportunity for a mistake,” Ms. Miner said. ”They can be made by the author, the editor, the copy editor, the typesetter. I don’t think you can expect perfection.”

….

Writing recipes is a skill. Accuracy is obviously essential, but there is an equally important need to write directions clearly. Not everyone has the knack. ”Cookbook writing is very tough,” Ms. Jones said. ”You have to write for beginners and advanced cooks.” And there is an additional problem. ”There are a lot more dummy cooks than there used to be.”

Marion Burros, Cookbook Follies: Recipes that Fail, NY Times 1997-09-17

Cycling out of James Bay

History

This is a historical summary.

James Bay

James Bay is at the south end of the City of Victoria, in the urban part of Greater Victoria between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Inner Harbour.

Routes

Many routes out of James Bay have vehicle traffic.  Douglas Street and Blanshard Streets are heavily travelled.  Douglas Street becomes a highway (the Trans-Canada) west to Colwood and Langford, over the Malahat and north up-island.  It has a paved shoulder and bike lane, but the traffic on the entrance and exit ramps is significant.  Blanshard Street runs up to Saanich and the BC Ferry terminal at Swartz Bay.  It is a highway, called Highway 17 or the Pat Bay Highway.  It has bike lanes, but significant traffic. Other streets go north: Quadra, Cook, Gorge Road, Cedar Hill, Richmond, Shelbourne.  They have drawbacks including traffic, lack of bike lanes, limited visibility, curb lanes occupied by parked cars, elevation changes. One option is to go downtown along Government, Douglas, Blanshard or Quadra as far as Fort Street and east and north on Fort Street whch has a bike lane (as of 2019)  The bike lane was redeveloped as a separated lane out past Cook Street as of 2017-18.  Fort Street crosses Oak Bay Avenue which runs east out to Beach. Fort becomes the Cadboro Bay Road.There is 5 k. loop around James Bay on Belleville along the Harbour on the north, the streets at the west end, Dallas on the south, and Douglas on the east. There is longer loop around Beacon Hill Park by Cook Street, and some loops in the park.  The is a new paved bike lane beside Dallas from Beacon Hill park to Ogden Point as of 2020 after Dallas Road was torn up 2018-20 for sewer reconstruction. These are usually safe in the evening but the traffic on Sundays is heavy between tourists, families with children, people walking dogs, and people taking elderly parents out.

 

In the first few years, many times , I went east on Dallas past Beacon Hill Park and the Ross Bay Cemetery and followed a nearly coastal route. Dallas continues until it runs into Hollywood Crescent and Crescent Drive, which also follow the coast.  These streets connect to to Beach Drive in Oak Bay.  The traffic along Dallas is steady.  There are intermittent micro-congestions behind tour buses and the ubiquitous horse drawn carriage rides.  There are sections where cars park at an angle facing the Strait. The drivers have little vision and can back into oncoming traffic. These conditions were mitigated by the new bike paths that opened in 2020.

In 2016 I began to take the Beacon Hill-Oak Bay-Uplands-UVic-San Juan option.

  1. going southeast along Niagara, through Beacon Hill Park exiting on Park Avenue;
  2. crossing Cook Street at May, turning north at Moss Street, crossing crossing Fairfield at the traffic light;
  3. turning right on Thurlow and follow Thurlow to Kipling and Brooke to St. Charles. Then another block along Chandler to Richmond, and a short block to Richardson. This avoid climbs of streets approaching the heights on Richardson at the south end of the Government House area. I used this as a route to Richmond at Richardson.
  4. From there, I often crossed Foul Bay Road and proceeded on Richardson (which becomes McNeill in Oak Bay) to Victoria, turned left and then turned right onto Windsor.
  5. I turned left (north) at Monterey, to cross Oak Bay Avenue with traffic lights. I go north on Monterey and St. Ann to Bowker, turn left and then right to continue northbound to the edge of Uplands of Oak Bay on Musgrave.
  6. I ride north and cross Lansdowne on Midland, continue on Upper Terrace until to ends at Cadboro Bay Road, opposite the end of Cedar Hill Cross Road.
  7. I cross Cadboro Bay Road and ride west on Cedar Hill Cross Road to University Drive and turn there and cross the Univesity of Victoria. Sometimes I pass the University and turn north on Gordon Head.
  8. I emerge at Gordon Head and McKenzie, at the NW corner of the campus, and on go up Gordon Head to Feltham. A left turn and an immediate right onto Longview brings me to San Juan, which runs west as road and trail as far west as Cedar Hill Road.

My main cycling-friendly route out of James Bay was north along Menzies or Government to the Legislature, and along Government and Wharf along the Inner Harbour to the east end of the Johnson Street Bridge. There is a cycling lane, as of 2019, along Government from Belleville to Humbolt and along Wharf to Johnson Steet.

The Victoria Canoe & Kayak Club is on Gorge Road just past Tillicum. My best route from James Bay to the club was over the Johnson Street Bridge, along the Galloping Goose to the park at the West Victoria Y, near the Selkirk Trestle. At that point it’s off the trail through the park to Craigflower and then on Selkirk, a side street t parallel to Craigflower, all the way to Tillicum. At that point a right turn onto Tillicum, across the bridge, a left turn onto Gorge Road and that’s it. It was 6.8 k one way, mainly off the main roads.

100% Whole Wheat Machine bread

100% whole wheat loaves may be made with a bread machine in the whole wheat program. High WW flour formulas that aim for sandwich loaves with an moderately open crumb use a dough with enhanced visco-elastic properties; the dough is enhanced with vital wheat gluten or bread flour and enriched with fats – oil or butter – and sugar in the form of molasses, honey, milk, brown sugar or refined sugar.

Much “whole wheat” bread multigrain bread. Multigrain covers many blends made with 50-90% flour being high protein white flour and some whole wheat flour. Loaves with high white flour content may use, and carmelized sugar products (e.g. molasses) for sweet flavour and brown colour. These loaves deliver the energy part of nutrition – starch – like sandwich bread and other processed carbohydrates. A multigrain loaf high in white flour can be baked in a bread machine with the basic bake program.

Bread machine recipes have to be customized; each machine needs a different amount of yeast to ferment to produce enough carbon dioxide to inflate the dough and make the dough rise within the time limits of the program. The best way to find the right amount of yeast for a bread machine recipe is to understand the manufacturer’s recipe for basic bread. The amount of yeast depends on the type of yeast and amount of salt in the recipe. I use instant yeast, and I write recipes in tables.

The manufacturer’s recipe for the whole wheat program is a suggestion of how produce a goof loaf with whole wheat flour, water, salt, added gluten, sugar, fats, and dry yeast in 4 hour program. Zojirushi’s recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread provides medium (1.5 lb.) and large (2 lb.) loaf formulas for the Zojirushi machines with large pans such as the BB-PAC20. I used those recipes to find out how to leaven 100% whole wheat for that device, a precaution to avoid overflowing or collapsing loaves.

The Zojirushi medium (1.5 lb.) recipe says to use 3.5 cups/420 g. of whole wheat flour recipe. The manual recommends measuring by scooping flour into a measuring cup – i.e. lightly scooped and less dense. This is a 3 cup recipe by weight. The manual says 4.2 g. [1.5 tsp] active dry yeast. 3 cups of whole wheat flour can be leavened with 3.6 g. of any instant yeast [a little more than 1 ¼ teaspoons]. It used a teaspoon of salt which is much healthier than many whole wheat recipes, but can be reduced using the usual calculations. Because I try to use 33% or 50% of the sodium (salt), than a recipe prescribes, I have to make a corresponding adjustment to yeast. The rule of reducing salt and yeast in the same proportion by weight works with whole wheat.

The dough made with the Z. recipe is enhanced with vital wheat gluten at a ratio of 1 tbsp. to 1 cup flour (8 g. to 139 g.). This exceeds the often generous prescriptions of Beth Hensperger for a 100% whole wheat loaf in the Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook. The Z. dough is enriched with sugar, >43 g. for 417 g. of flour in a medium loaf (35 g. refined sugar, 7.5 g sugar in 10 g. molasses, lactose in milk powder) i.e. about 9% of dry ingredient weight. The recipe bakes into a denser bread than I like, which is fixed by reducing the water by a few teaspoons to get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape. Bakers hydrate whole wheat flour more intensely that bread flour to get suitable dough. Some of the water comes out in the baking. Whole wheat loaves have to be left to cool and dry out a bit. I find that in a machine, I can just leave out a little water. I can happily bake and eat this bread. I haven’t tried to toast it.

I have baked Beth Henspergers “Tecate Ranch Whole Wheat”, BLBMC (p. 126), a 100% whole wheat flour loaf enriched with canola oil, honey, and molasses a few times. It gets sugar from honey, molasses and milk powder (lactose is milk and dry milk is a sugar) . It may have as much or more sugar than the Zojirushi formula. BLBMC named it for a spa in Baja California that served “Zarathustra” bread; the spa used Zoroastrianism as one its themes. Exotic naming was a staple of marketing several times, in different decades of the 19th and 20th centuries. For an SF reading of the name, consider watching 2001: a Space Odessey, listening to the fanfare of Thus Spake Zarathustra. This could inspire a vision of black monolith. With gluten and adequate yeast the loaf rises and crowns nicely. I adapted the BLBMC source – it uses too much yeast (and is not low sodium). I get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape with just a little less water.

Adding gluten offsets the tendency of whole wheat to produce dense loaves by providing enough additional elasticity to use the CO2 produced by fermentation to provide some crumb and lift. The sugar weakens the gluten slightly, which enhances pan flow.

Organic stone ground flour doesn’t require changes to recipes. It seems to lead to slightly more open and rustic crumb. I am not able to find a flavour difference.

I have a Flax seed multigrain loaf recipe with 2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour for a medium loaf. I am adapting my sister’s Flax Seed Whole Wheat bread with 2.5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of white flour, oatmeal, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, poppy seeds, flax meal, and 1.75 cups milk.  It works in her machine, producing a loaf with an open crumb. I have adapted it for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 for low sodium – this is a work in progress.

Cycling computers & GPS

Table of Contents

Classic

Original or classic cyclometers measure and display distance, time and speed. The devices could be powered by button cell batteries. These units had (or if in use, have) a magnet that clips onto a spoke which rotates the magnet past a sensor. They count rotations and process data to display speed, distance and time. The original models had a wired sensor; more modern models have wireless sensors. These devices need to be programmed with the circumference of the wheel to calculate how far the bike moves forward each time the wheel goes through a full revolution. The tire will flex under load; the distance travelled is a little less than the circumference of the inflated tire measured unloaded. Cateye had a chart in its manuals, listing the circumferences for dozens of tires, including several 700c tires from 700c x 18 to 700c x 40. Similar charts are online in support articles by Sheldon Brown and by volunteers in the public knowledge base at newwheel.net. I had a Bontrager (Trek) computer on my Trek hybrid – it gave the user choices of tire size in a menu rather picking a circumference in the menu. These systems assume uniform tire sizes, inflated to the rated/marked maximum. The circumference of a tire on a wheel is affected by the tire pressure. It is small inaccuracy, only a centimer in 200 (½ of one percent).

Most units could be calibrated to one bike; a few could be programmed to two bikes. They may pause and appear to “sleep” if the rider stops for longer than a couple of minutes. It depend on the device, default settings and user choices. Setting them up is time consuming and balky.

The monochrome displays were visible even in bright sunlight and under low light conditions.

GPS

GPS was not available to cyclists until the US goverment allowed non military users, after the year 2000, to receive satellite signals from Global Positioning Satellites and calculate position on the ground to within 5 meters. This provided enough accuracy for navigation and tracking distance and speed. A cycling GPS head unit will measure distance accurately and “save” the ride in memory. It may lose a few meters as the device may need a few seconds to recognize when the rider has started to move after halting. The device may lose satellites in tree cover, and falter in calculating velocity or elevation changes. The rider usually has to power the device on, and the device then usually starts to record the session as a new ride or a lap. There are some nuances to setting up a device. Setting up and learning the unit requires time and attention, as changing anything during a ride takes time and reference to manuals and resources that may not be available.

Garmin, having produced watch sized GPS units for runners in 2003, began to produce and sell the Edge GPS receiver for cycling in 2005. Garmin added functions including rear radar, lights, power meters, electronic shifter controls, touch screens, colour screens, maps, navigation and voice prompts in more evolved and expensive head units combined with peripherals. The units for sale bundle primary functions with functions used occassionally by some users, and with some specialized functions and features. Garmin has added GPS functions using the alternative satellites of the Russian Glonass system and the EU Galileo system. Competitors including Wahoo have entered the market.

Basic models do not display a map or provide navigational prompts. Some can be paired with smartphones which may, if they are using wireless data, be able to display maps. A large screen displaying a map is useful if the rider can stop and check, but can be a distraction. The marriage of the GPS cyclometer to cloud computing, big data and social apps means cyclists are sharing their location data with the device manufacturer network and its partners. If the device network servers are hacked, as Garmin was in July 2020, users can lose access to functions that depend on the servers in the cloud. It may not matter much if the cyclist is only using the head unit to display and record distance and speed.

Smart Phones

It seems to be efficient to use a smart phone app on a phone that you already own, and to not acquire a head unit but there are trade-offs.

Smart phone mapping apps will tell a user where the user is on a map but do not necessarily calculate distance and speed in real time. These apps use the GPS receiver and sensors in the phone, and the location services of the OS ecosystem. The GPS receiver is not as good as a dedicated GPS head set; these apps do not appear to record distance as accurately as GPS headunit or a classic cyclometer. Google had MyTracks, an app that ran in Google Maps, but killed it in 2016. The cycling, running, walking and hiking apps push ads, harvest data and self-promote paid apps with better “features”. I am not happy mounting a phone to handlebars or using battery power and cellular data.

Wheat Flour

The Nafufians, hunter gatherers in Jordan, were making bread with wild cereal 12,500 BCE.  The master formula for ancient bread is to grind dried grain into a paste or flour, add water and yeast, let the stuff ferment, tear it in pieces and cook the pieces on a hot surface. People know how to grind and mill flour, and bake bread before the science was understood. The master formula for a loaf of bread is to make paste of flour and water and handle the paste until to becomes a mass of dough and put pieces of dough on the hot surface and bake it. 

The wild cereal evolved into wheat, which grew in the Fertile Crescent and Egypt (and North Africa) when the climate was wetter. Wheat has been grown in Western Europe, on the Eurasian plains and the North Amercan plains. Most bread is made with wheat flour. The supply chain for a consumer of flour or bread is farmer (land, seed, work, machinery) to mill (machinery to refine wheat to flour) to bakery to retail store to consumer. The interactions between actors along the chain have changed wheat, flour, baking and bread. Wheat can be classified based on millers’ descriptions or botanical taxonomy. Wheat evolved, under the direction of plant breeders into varieties of a short grass that produces high carb seeds. Farmers grow cultivars of annual wheat. Organic agriculture criticizes the wheat monoculture and the use intensive chemical fertilizers. Millers want wheat that they can mill into white flour. Bakers want white flour that can be mixed and baked into white bread.

White bread became a widely available commodity. White flour became a standard miller’s product, a commodity, and staple for consumers after the development of steel roller milling. White flour is highly refined – the bran and germ of the wheat kernel are milled out. White flour does not require refrigerated storage. It is shelf stable. White flour is nearly pure starch. White flour, in the U.S.A, is identified and labelled as being in one of several categories including Bread (or strong), All-Purpose, Pastry and Cake.

Bread flour is milled from high protein “hard” wheat (Canadian All-Purpose is high protein like US bread flour) and has more gliadin and glutenin, the insoluble proteins that bond to form gluten than white cake or pastry flour. Bleaching 1the source is now gated became legal in the US in the 20th century. According to the science cited by the milling and food processing companies, bleaching did not affect nutrition. There was instant reaction by some bakers, consumers and food scientists. European food scientists debated about the effects of industrial mixing methods on the quality of white bread. Consumers accepted the convenience and low price of sliced bread. Through much of the 20th century American bakers concentrated on making sandwich bread. Nutritionists criticized white flour in the 1930s. American regulatory decision makers required the enrichment of white flour with nutrients. Consumers became suspicious that mass-production white bread lacked culinary or nutritional quality. Some independent artisan bakers used baking technique to produce better white bread.

Whole wheat baking was a counterculture idea in the 1960s, rather than a restoration of traditional baking practices, remembered through cookbooks from that era such Edward Espé Brown’s Tassajara cookbook. The pioneer counterculture bakers were vegetarians, enviromentalists and spiritual thinkers, interested in authentic and natural products. Their methods were often trial and error; they were skeptical or unaware of food science and culinary tradition. They had to learn about leavening and other baking methods. Some followed traditional regional styles for flatbreads, which had efficiently used grain, fuel and time. Recipes from vegetarian, vegan and nutritional/health oriented recipes tend to produce brick-like loaves. Peter Reinhart has a chapter in Whole Grain Breads (2007) on how he learned to bake before he started Brother Juniper’s Café/Bakery in Santa Rosa, California in 1986. He describes the 1960s and 1970s as a preamble to an American culinary awakening. Independent artisans or craft bakers used methods including use long or cold fermentation to make very tasty loaves with whole wheat flour. Industrial bakers responded to demand and opportunity with their interpretation of whole grain baking producing brown bread, which is usually a white flour multigrain bread. Artisan baking did not scale to industrial baking.

Millers do not use high protein wheat to mill whole wheat flour. There is an abundance of steel roller milled whole wheat flour available. It is not as shelf stable as white flour, but more stable than traditional whole wheat flour. Stone ground whole wheat and “organic” whole wheat flour is less stable and more expensive. It is usually made with basic market wheat, and seldom made with identified varieties of wheat.

A home baker and an artisan baker can make whole wheat bread with starters, soakers, sponges, barms and sponges. This gives the loaf time for preliminary fermentation which adds flavour. It also allows for more gluten formation which starts when flour and water are mixed. Bakers hydrate whole wheat flour more intensely that bread flour. Sugar it is hygroscopic and weakens (relaxes) gluten. Small amounts relax gluten for flow and rise much. With time and hydration, loave with whole wheat flour, water and sugar will form gluten and shape up and bake into loaves that crown up. A commercial baker working in with pans will not have time or space to let loaves rise slowly and could enhance whole wheat dough with vital wheat gluten and enrich the dough with sugar. These recipes may use about 6 g. (less than a tablespoon) of gluten to 300 g. of whole wheat flour. In bread machine recipes, gluten may run at a tablespoon and sugar(s) to 1 ½ to 2 tbsp. per cup of flour.

“Farm to table” cooks (e.g. Dan Barber, The Third Plate) and plant breeders (e.g. The Bread Lab at Washington State University) try to find good wheat that can be grown sustainably. The Bread Lab is a resource for recipes and techniques to bake with “unsifted” whole wheat flour. It has recipes for an “Approachable” sourdough whole wheat loaf on its Unsifted page and Bread Lab Collective page.

White Chickpeas

The white chickpea is a dry legume. The botanical name for chickpeas is Cicer arietinum. The white chickpea and the black and green chickpeas of South Asia are varietals or cultivars of the same species.

Chickpeas are a staple in the cuisines of regions from the Mediterranean to India. The Romans named it cicero; the Italian word is ceci. It is also known in America as the garbanzo bean. The Hindustani name for the while chickpea is kabuli chana – the chickpea from Afghanistan. In India it is also known in as chole or chana.

Chickpeas are harvested dry and whole. Dry beans can be ground into a flour used to make flatbreads and dumplings. White chickpeas are usually cooked whole, while black and green chickpeas may be hulled and split.

White chickpeas are cooked whole in the skin. They keep their shape and do not shed their skin – this provides texture and assorted nutritional benefits. Undercooked chickpeas are grainy or even crunchy. Some recipes start with dry legumes and cook them in a sauce; some cook the legumes first, and then cook them again with other ingredients. Cooked chickpeas absorb flavours. Some recipes suggest removing skins after the cooked legumes are cool, before mashing or other processing. Well known dishes:

  • South Asian dishes including chana masala, chana aloo (chana with potatoes) and other vegetable curries;
  • Italian dishes including pasta e ceci;
  • Hummus (Cooked, mashed and seasoned).

Chickpeas take a long time to cook, compared to other dry legumes. Soaking reduces cooking times for all cooking methods. The main methods of soaking:

  • naturally for hours in water at room temperature, or
  • a short period in boiling water, or a pressure cooker (quick-soak).

Variations include soaking in salt water and soaking in water with baking soda. These methods require the cook to drain and rinse the soaked beans and discard the soaking water.

Most recipes call for cooked or canned chickpeas, or have a distinct step of cooking the beans. A few recipes will use the fluid of some canned beans, which is not necessarily a good idea. Often the canning fluid in not palatable, and the fluid is high in sodium. Many recipes often recommend disposing of the canning fluid and rinsing the beans. Several recipes conserve and use the soaking and cooking fluid of cooked dry chickpeas. This is workable if the fluid has not been salted or treated with baking soda.

The modern kitchen provides several options for cooking dry chickpeas. On a stove, and working with soaked beans, sources favour bringing the water to a rolling boil and backing off to a steady boil or simmer. Cooks judge slow or gentle boil differently. Stove and pots perform differently. Beans may be old. Sources provide a range of cooking times, in the table below. In the table, the. times are stated in minutes. For the pressure cooker recipes, the authors advise slow or natural release which gives the beans 15-20 minutes at or above the boiling point, after the stated pressure “cooking” time).

SourcesSimmerSlow CookerElectric Pressure Cooker
Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop35-60
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998),
Andrea Chesman		2 hrs.
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla;
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla		45-60 Soaked: 4 hrs High3
The Complete Slow Cooker (2017), America’s Test KitchenDry: 8-9 hrs High
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura PazzagliaSoaked: 18 minutes at High
Dry: 38-40 minutes at High
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill NussinowSoaked: 12-14 minutes at High
Dry: 30-40 minutes at High
Madhur Jaffrey’s Instantly Indian Cookbook (2019)Soaked: 3 minutes at High
Dry: not advised.

A few notes on the Instant Pot and other electric multi-cooker devices:

  1. The Instant Pot is an electric pressure cooker. Some pressure cooker books state that soaked chickpeas need 12-14 minute at high pressure, and the slow “natural” release. Madhur Jaffrey said 3 minutes is enough in her Instant Pot book, cited above. That leads to firm chickpeas, but cooks them.
  2. America’s Test Kitchen and other cooking books and sites have raised questions about whether an Instant Pot can perform recipes for slow cookers. The Instant Pot can do dried chickpeas in the Slow Cooker mode. I use smaller amounts (under 3 cups). I soak these legumes in the Instant Pot, and add more water to cover the beans if the soaked beans have swelled above the surface. I follow with a quick soak – cooking the legumes on Pressure Cooker High for one or two minutes, and let the pressure drop naturally. Then, and while the beans and cooking water are hot, I start the slow cooker program on High (or “More” in some models), cooking with the pressure cooker lid with pressure release valve left open. 6 hours in Slow Cooker mode on High cooks quick-soaked dry beans, including chickpeas, thoroughly.

Small Dry Legumes

Table of Contents

Introduction

I am describing the small dry legumes, including lentils, as opposed to small phaseolus beans (including black turtle beans). T

These legumes are commonly sold as dry grain; some canned lentils are available. Some were sold in bulk food stores and as bulk foods in grocery stores. The availability of bulk products was affected in 2020 by the Covid-19 epidemic.

Lentils

Lentils (Lens culinaris and related species) have several varieties which look different and cook differently. Brown lentils cook (get soft in boiling or simmering temperature water) faster. Green lentils take longer and taste different. Some of the differences in cooking time are shortened or can be ignored with pressure cookers and slow cookers. Recipes may suggest soaking some small legumes, but soaking is often left out.

The interior parts of brown lentils are reddish pink and can be hulled and processed into red lentils. Some exporters, wholesalers and retailers refer to brown lentils as red lentils. Some Green and brown/crimson lentils grown in the US (Pacific Northwest, Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho) and Western Canada are larger than other lentils. Canadian growers mainly grow green culinaris lentils of the Laird, Richlea and Eston varieties, and a large crimson lentil (Lens esculanta).

Whole green and brown lentils and red/pink/salmon lentils grown in the US or Canada were widely available in grocery stores before Covid-19. Whole brown lentils were popular in stores in the US but not as common in Canada. The availability and presentation began to vary during the pandemic. Black lentils, small lentils that cook brown, were and are a specialized product, remained available in some channels.

Other

Other small dry legumes could be available in stores specializing in selling supplies for South Asian, Middle Eastern, North Afican, or regional European cuisines or health themed stores including vegetarian/vegan.

Legume,
English/Euro name(s)		South AsianConditionAppearance
DryCooked
dark chickpeachana dal (duhli)split, hulledyellow
pigeon peatoor dal (duhli)split, hulledyellow
moong bean,
mung bean		(sabut) moong dalwholegreen
moong beanmoong dal (duhli)split, hulledyellowyellow
urad bean
black bean		(sabut) urad dalwholeblackblack
urad beanurad dal (duhli)split, hulledwhite
brown (spanish or german)
lentil		(sabut) masoor dalwholebrownbrown
red, pink, salmon lentilmasoor dal (duhli)hulled and splitredyellow
crimson lentilhulled and/or splitred, largeyellow
green lentilwholepale green
French green lentil
Lentil de Puys		wholedark green, speckled
black or beluga lentilwholeblackbrown

Cooking

Lentils and other small legumes are almost inedible to humans without cooking. The hulls are hard and have to be removed mechnically, or softened by cooking; the seeds are dry and hard and have to be softened by cooking. Many recipes reduce split and hulled legumes to a gruel. Recipes for whole legumes may specify a legume with a hull that softens rapidly such as a French lentil. Other recipes for whole small legumes require long cooking – e.g. the urad bean. The seeds have to be flavoured, often by an infusion of other plants including peppers. Meat and vegetables can be cooked with legumes for nutrition or flavour. Some recipes cook small legumes in a sauce. South Asian dal recipes may require a tarka – a sauce of spices friend in oil or ghee (clarified butter) be added to cooked legumes and other ingredients. Some recipes pre-cook small legumes, and cook the legumes with other ingredients in soup, sauce or stew.

The modern kitchen provides several options for cooking dry legumes. all involving cooking in water at a boil or simmer. There are recipes to simmer small legumes in ceramic tagines and other ceramic vessels. Few cooks have such tools. On a stove, in a metal vessel, sources favour bringing the water to a rolling boil and backing off to gentlly boiling, braising or steady simmering. Cooks judge simmer or gentle boil differently. Stove and pots perform differently. Beans may be old.

Traditional slow cooker recipes for usually start from dry (unsoaked) legumes. Traditional slow cooker recipes work in pressure multi-cookers such as Instant Pots in the slow cooker program, with adjustments. There are Instant Pot and pressure multi-cooker recipes for the slow cooker program. Electric pressure cooker and pressure multi-cooker pressure program recipes also usually start from dry (unsoaked legumes). The cooking times are at pressure, and do not estimate or count the time for the machine to preheat to pressure. The release of pressure has to be natural (i.e. about 15 – 20 minutes). Slow cookers, pressure cooker and pressure multi-cookers can pre-cook dry legumes, or cook a recipe using dry legumes in a sauce or stew.

Sources provide a range of cooking times (minutes unless other unit noted):

Legume/DalSourceSimmerSlow cookerElectric Pressure
Brown, Green, French Green or
Black (beluga) lentil		How to Cook Everything and, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian,
Mark Bittman		20-30
test and cook longer
depending on tenderness
brown lentilItalian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop25-35
brown lentilPakistani & North Indian Cooking (2015), S. Abbas Razza45
brown or green lentil366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998),
Andrea Chesman		25-40
brown or green lentilEasy Beans (1994),
Tish Ross and Jacqueline Trafford		30-40;
1-2 hrs for soups
green lentilAt Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey40
brown lentilThe Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy SinglaLow; 3 hrs
brown or green lentilHip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura PazzagliaHigh 12-14
brown or green lentilVegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill NusinowHigh 6
red lentil366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998),
Andrea Chesman		15
red lentilAt Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey40-45
red lentilIndian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla;
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla		12 + final boilLow; 3-6 hrs
red lentilThe Complete Slow Cooker (2017), America’s Test KitchenHigh; 2-3 hrs
Low; 3-4 hrs
red lentilHip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura PazzagliaHigh 1
red lentilVegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill NusinowHigh 6 +
toor dal (duhli)At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey1 hr +
chana dal,
toor dal (duhli), 		Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla;
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla		*soaked 2-4 hrs,
25-60
High; 6 hrs
sabut moong dalIndian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla;
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla		25-30Low; 2 ⅟₂ hrs
moong beanHip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura PazzagliaHigh 7-8
sabat urad dalIndian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla;
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla		1 ⅟₂ hrsHigh; 8 hrs
moong dal duhliAt Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey45
“yellow split” lentilHip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura PazzagliaHigh 1