I had been taking prescribed hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) 12.5 mg per day, a diuretic – to control (reduce) blood pressure, since 2011. It was not effective to counteract edema, a side effect of another medication. It has side effects that interfere with digestion and absorbing potassium. I was hospitalized for 2 days in June 2021 as a result of falling. Someone on the hospital team thought I had a potassium deficiency (this was not suggested to have been a cause of the accident). Someone changed my medications to eliminate the diuretic, and prescibed a potassium supplement, for the days I was in hospital. This 2 day intervention did not affect my blood pressure, as far as I was told.
Potassium is an element; the chemical symbol is K. It is measured in milligrams (1/1000 of a gram, abbreviated as mg.) in nutrition. It is an electrolyte, and can also be called a mineral or a nutrient. The US Department of Health, National Institute of Health (NIH), Office of Dietary Supplements, publishes an online Fact sheet for Health Professionals which recommends an adult male person weighing about 80 kg. should consume 3,400 milligrams of potassium per day. The fact sheet, which has been varied 2018-2021, lists some foods high in potassium. The putative source data is found in the US Department of Agriculture’s database, available onlinein 2021 by an application program interface called FoodData Central. The database includes
SR (Standard Reference) data, in the USDA “National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Legacy (2018)”;
Branded data about foods presented as branded commodities “generated by industry through a public-private partnership” with LabelInsight, a data firm.
The data is not easy to search. A food source may be spelled differently than expected – moong beans may be moong or mung (the latter is a more popular version of spelling in on product packages in the USA). Many dry beans are listed both raw and cooked (boiled), but not all.
The information in the NIH fact sheet generally aligns to the database, but do not always align on product or serving,. The fact sheet seems confused on how much a consumer will consume as a serving. The NIH fact sheet does not list all the foods high in potassium. I transposed some foods from the fact sheet in a table below, and interpolated some foods – mainly legumes – not in the fact sheet. Comments on the fact sheet, the list, and the table:
A calorie is a unit of heat. Literally, food scientists burned food to see how much energy the food contained;
The Calorie on a food package is 1,000 times larger than the calorie used in chemistry and physics. A Calorie is a kilocalorie (kcal,), the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius.(), abbreviated mg.
Food
Amount
Size
K (mg)
Mass (g)
Water (g)
Calories
Total carbs (g)
Starch (g)
Sugars (g)
lipids (fat) g.
protein (g)
Dried apricots
½ cup
1101
80
24.7
193
50
42.7
Cooked lentils
1 cup
731
198
138
230
39.8
17.9
Boiled mature White beans: Navy, Great Northern Cannellini
*The mg. K number for 1% milk. The fact sheet says 366 mg; the database says 391 mg.
The NIH fact sheet states 1 cup of cooked lentils contains 731 mg K. It aligns with lentils cooked by boiling in water, without salt, in the database. This is a large “serving”. 1 cup of dry lentils braised in 2 cups of water yields what consumers would regard as 4 servings. The USDA data search returns on specific lentils and legumes in the branded product data are incomplete. Some show raw red lentils as containing significant potassium. US and Canadian farmers have been growing mainly large green and brown lentils. Red lentils are split, hulled, brown lentils. But hulled whole brown lentils are red or pink in appearance and marketed by farmers and distributors as red lentils. Brown lentils became scarce in grocery stores near me during the Covid-19 pandemic; red lentils (hulled split brown lentils) remained plentiful. French green lentils and black lentils are available some times in some stores.
Dried apricots and raisins, and banana and apples contains sugars, which are metabolized differently than the carbohydrates in vegetables including legumes such as beans and lentils. Sugar metabolizes into body fat if the body does not need the energy within hours of consumption. Some of the foods listed as high in K provide a rationale for eating high sugar fruits and dried fruits.
Spinach is bulky when raw but wilts. Folding a few cups of chopped raw spinach into a hot dish is easy and fast.
I have recipes for Aloo Palak (potato/spinach stir fry), Aloo Gobi (potato/cauliflower stir fry), Aloo Baingain (potato/eggplant stir fry), braised lentils with spinach, dal (split hulled moong beans) with spinach and other dishes. The potato/vegetable recipes, like lentils, will make several servings but are high in potassium. The grocery stores have been able to provide potatoes, spinach, cauliflower, eggplants and several kind of dry lentils and beans in 2020 and 2021.
A cup of wheat bran has 684 mg. of K. I have recipes for a dozen bran muffins made with 1.5 cups of bran and a half cup of raisins has 1642 mg. of K. 1 muffin has 137 mg. of K.
The recipe book is Anupi Singla’s Indian for Everyone, published in 2014 by the Surrey Books imprint of Agate Publishing; also a quality paperback 2016, and an ebook in the Amazon Kindle store.
The problem in the recipes for Aloo Mattar at p. 95, Panak Aloo at p. 97, and Aloo Gobi at p. 98, in the printed editions, is the cooking time for the potatoes (aloo). In these recipes, the raw chopped potatoes are added to lightly fried onions and spices and stir fried for a couple of minutes and then cooked on low after other vegetables are added, for about 20 minutes. These are all sabji or stir fried dishes, in this author’s presentation. The result was crunchy and barely cooked potatoes.
The author prefers to use peeled Russet potatoes. Russets is the collective term of a few cultivars, including Idaho – the brown, thick skinned starchy potatoes chosen as baking potatoes and potatoes for deep frying as “French fries. This does not explain the outcome.
The error is a missed or unstated step. The missing step adds to the time to prepare this meal, and involves additional vessels and resources – another pot on the stove or an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker to cook or parcook the potatoes. Madhur Jaffrey has similiar vegetable stir fry recipes for potatoes in At Home with Madhur Jaffrrey but she has boiled the potatoes before using them.
It is not necessary to cook the potatoes until they crumble, but the potatoes need some cooking time before putting them a stir fry.
The technique to cook potatoes on in a vessel on a stove is to scrub the potatoes and cut out eyes and other visible surface defects,cover the potatoes in water, bring the pot to a boil and simmer. Thick skinned starchy potatoes should be better peeled. Peeling thinner skinned potatoes (i.e. white or yellow or many varieties of red) is a matter of taste and purpose. Salting the cooking water is an option. The cooking time depends on the kind of potatoes and size of the pieces. Baby waxy potatoes may take less than 15 minutes. Small potatoes and quarters of medium and larger potatoes may take 20-25 minutes.
The cooking time for potatoes at high pressure (11-12 psi; ie. at 242-244 degrees F.) in an Instant Pot or other electric pressure multi-cooker is 8 minutes. To parcook, I use 3 minutes on high or 4-5 minutes on low. I use a bain marie method – the potatoes in a ceramic vessel on a rack in the pressure pot. (There is water in the pressure pot of course, put the potatoes are cooked by steam water that being boiled in water). For pressure cookers, some fluid is needed but it is not necessary to cover the potatoes; the potatoes can be kept out of the fluid by using a rack or steamer basket, or a bain marie vessel. The cooking time (on high) and release method vary:
Potato
Fluid (per JN)
Time | release Stovetop 15 psi
Electric or Instant Pot 12 psi
JN
LP
LP
Whole large or medium
.5-1 cup
10-14 min. | Natural
10-13 min. | Either
13-15 min. | Either
Quarters Large chunks
.25-.5 cups More fluid for mashed
4-5 min. | Manual
5 min. | Either
8 min. | Either
Small whole
.5 cups
8-10 min. | Natural
5 min. | Either
7 min. | Either
Baby, fingerling
.25-.5 cups
1-2 min. | Manual
5 min. | Natural
8 min. | Natural
Sliced or diced
.25-.5 cups
3 min. | Manual
Jill Nussinow, Vegan Under Pressure; Laura Pazzaglia, Hip Pressure Cooking
It is possible to add a little water and leave the dish simmering and steaming for an extra hour. This works with peas (Aloo Mattar) but less well with cauliflower.
This post was published in 2021, with some later editing and further thoughts after more experience.
Cooked or Canned
Cooked dry beans are a staple ingredient. Some recipes provide directions for cooking dry beans as a step in a recipe, or by reference to another recipe for cooked beans in the recipe source/collection. Some recipes call for canned beans, rinsed. This is common in slow cooker recipes. Canned bean are dry beans cooked in the canning process. Dry beans may take twice the cooking time as other ingredients, or may not cook properly. Canned beans have cooking fluid in the can. This may contain sodium and other residual ingredients. It may be unpalatable. The extra fluid may affect the recipe. Most recipes recommend rinsing the beans and discarding the fluid.
Cooked beans can be substituted for canned beans in any recipe. The benefits are not paying for factory cooking and other supplier and seller costs built into in the price of canned goods, and avoidance of salt and additives. The cooking fluid can be used in the recipe or set aside and used as a vegetarian stock – it depends on how it tastes.
1/2 cup of dry beans makes 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans, the amount in one 14 fluid ounce can of canned cooked beans. Precision is generally not necessary:
For recipes requiring precise proportions, you should always cook … the dried beans before you measure them, using the average equivalents as a rough guide to estimate the amount of dried beans you need to prepare. Many bean recipes are fairly forgiving and adjustable.
The Spruce Eats – How to Measure and Use Dried Beans
Soaking before cooking starts hydration. It reduces the cooking time and improves the result. This is true for every cooking method except the extremely slow simmering e.g. in a ceramic olla as Rick Bayliss describes in some of his books on Central American and Mexican cooking. Soaking for at least a few hours prepares dry beans. The common advice is to soak overnight. This may mean 12 hours but can mean over 20 hours. Cook’s Illustrated/American’s Test Kitchen explained its tests on soaking at pp. 256-258 of The Science of Good Cooking (2012).
Some phaseolus vulgaris (Central American beans) varietals take up more water than others. For instance cannellini (white kidney beans) absorb more than pinto peas or black turtle bean.
Cook’s Illustrated/American’s Test Kitchen discusses variations on soaking: soaking in water at ambient (room) temperature, quick-soaking cook dry beans for a short time in boiling water or in a pressure cooker. The “quick-soak” or parcooking methods use any appliance and vessel that can hold dry beans in boiling water. Anupy Singla’s slow cooker recipe (The Indian Slow Cooker) for red kidney beans says quick soak in boiling water, and 5 hours on high in an electric crock pot type slow cooker. Laura Pazzaglia discusses soaking methods and times in her article/lesson Long-soaking and Quick-soaking beans in the Pressure Cooker and soaking for pressure cookers (including Instant Pots) in her article/lesson Pressure Cooking DRY versus SOAKED Beans.
Cook’s Illustrated/American’s Test Kitchen also explains soaking in brine, and/or adding baking soda to the cooking water. These use sodium to some degree. I have not tried them, as I avoid sodium. Those publishing brands tend to aim at an audience of home cooks striving to cook like restaurants, most of which use salt heavily for the taste buds of modern consumers, sensitized to highly salted foods.
The claim that soaking dry beans removes “indigestable sugars” and helps to avoid intestinal gas is common but unverified. Beans contain sugars: stachyose, verbascose and raffinose which ferment in the digestive tract, producing gas. There is support for the claim that soaking removes some sugars in some medical and scientific literature. For instance see this Michigan State University extension publication. However, soaking cannot remove sugars without removing other nutrients and flavour ingredients, and probably does not remove much sugar.
Instant Pot options
The pressure cooker program can cook unsoaked dry beans. It can be used to “quick soak” dry beans.
The pressure cooker program or the slow cooker program can be used, of cousse to cook soaked beans.
Medium and Large Phaseolus & Chickpeas
Rick Bayless’s slow cooker recipes for black (turtle) beans and pinto beans in Mexican Everyday (2006) start with unsoaked dry beans, to emulate cooking in an olla, discussed in his Authentic Mexican (1987), and Mexico, One Plate at a Time (2000). In Mexico, One Plate at a Time (at p. 192) he reported cooking in an olla heated the beans and water to 205-210 degrees (F), with little evaporation. He says 6 hours on the high setting in a slow cooker. In an Instant Pot with the slow cooker program this is 6 hours on the high slow cooker using the the sealing lid, with the pressure valve set to vent. Other traditional slow cooker recipe propose 8-10 hours slow cooker low for unsoaked black, pinto, cranberry (i.e. medium Phaseolus). I cooked small recipes in a small round traditional slow cooker on low in lower times.
Chickpeas and the large dry beans such as red kidney, Borlotti, cannellini, cranberry can be slow cooked in an Instant Pot by a three stage process:
a few hours by the natural method of soaking in water at room temperature – the beans will take up some water and swell;
in the Instant Pot, with enough water to cover the beans by a centimeter, a pressure cooker program “quick soak” (two minutes at high pressure, and a manual release); and
top up the water to cover the beans, and 2-4 hours at slow cooker program, high. If I have time, I keep the beans simmering at slow cooker program medium (which is equivalent to traditional crock pot low) for 3-6 hours. The beans can be kept warm as slow cooker program low, or the warming program.
This works in a six quart Instant Pot with one or two cups of dry beans in the bottom of the Instant Pot in less than a quart of water.
The larger phaseolus varieties are not necessarily the hardest. This method worked with seda beans, with extra time, but the beans were old.
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.
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;
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).
Sources
Simmer
Slow Cooker
Electric Pressure Cooker
Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop
35-60
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 Kitchen
Dry: 8-9 hrs High
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
Soaked: 18 minutes at High Dry: 38-40 minutes at High
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill Nussinow
Soaked: 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:
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.
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.
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 Asian
Condition
Appearance
Dry
Cooked
dark chickpea
chana dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
pigeon pea
toor dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
moong bean, mung bean
(sabut) moong dal
whole
green
moong bean
moong dal (duhli)
split, hulled
yellow
yellow
urad bean black bean
(sabut) urad dal
whole
black
black
urad bean
urad dal (duhli)
split, hulled
white
brown (spanish or german) lentil
(sabut) masoor dal
whole
brown
brown
red, pink, salmon lentil
masoor dal (duhli)
hulled and split
red
yellow
crimson lentil
hulled and/or split
red, large
yellow
green lentil
whole
pale green
French green lentil Lentil de Puys
whole
dark green, speckled
black or beluga lentil
whole
black
brown
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/Dal
Source
Simmer
Slow cooker
Electric 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 lentil
Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (1997), Jack Bishop
25-35
brown lentil
Pakistani & North Indian Cooking (2015), S. Abbas Razza
45
brown or green lentil
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998), Andrea Chesman
25-40
brown or green lentil
Easy Beans (1994), Tish Ross and Jacqueline Trafford
30-40; 1-2 hrs for soups
green lentil
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
40
brown lentil
The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
Low; 3 hrs
brown or green lentil
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 12-14
brown or green lentil
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill Nusinow
High 6
red lentil
366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans and Grains (1998), Andrea Chesman
15
red lentil
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
40-45
red lentil
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
12 + final boil
Low; 3-6 hrs
red lentil
The Complete Slow Cooker (2017), America’s Test Kitchen
High; 2-3 hrs Low; 3-4 hrs
red lentil
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 1
red lentil
Vegan Under Pressure (2016), Jill Nusinow
High 6 +
toor dal (duhli)
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
1 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 dal
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
25-30
Low; 2 ⅟₂ hrs
moong bean
Hip Pressure Cooking (2014), Laura Pazzaglia
High 7-8
sabat urad dal
Indian for Everyone (2014), Anupy Singla; The Indian Slow Cooker (2nd ed. 2018), Anupy Singla
1 ⅟₂ hrs
High; 8 hrs
moong dal duhli
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey (1973), Madhur Jaffrey
Any vessel that can hold rice and water can cook rice: a rice cooker appliance, a pot on a stove top, or a pressure cooker.
For steamed long grain white rice, including Basmati, I often use a normal pot on the stove. I use the Instant Pot for brown rice. I may use the Instant Pot for white rice particularly when I will add the rice to a wok (e.g. nasi goreng) or when I am working on another dish on the stove and want to get the rice ready at the same time.
The cooking directions on a package of rice typically are for steamed rice in an ordinary pot on stove, or a microwave – typically there are no directions for pressure cookers. Typically, such directions suggest 2 or more cups of water for a cup of rice. This approach typically produces soggy rice in stove-top pot or a pressure cooker. (Bad results if the rice is left on the heat too long). A stovetop recipe can be adapted. Package directions have to adjusted, depending on how you like your rice
The ratio of rice to water may be the same for a pressure cooker as a stovetop pot. In any pressure cooker, including a pressure multi-cooker – e.g. an Instant Pot – the preheat and the time at operating pressure bring the water to a boil, and up to operating temperature. The rice is boiled, and then simmers during a 15- 20 minute natural release period (the vessel is sealed, the heat is off and temperature and pressure drop over time). Using the pressure cooker program with natural release adapts the normal approach to steamed rice.
The advice on ratio or rice to water for a conventional pot on a stovetop or pressure cooker converges on a ratio of 1.5 cups of water to 1 cup of rice for the first cup of dry rice. Jill Nussenow, the Veggie Queen, will decrease the water for larger amounts of rice. She suggests 1.5 cups of water for the first cup of rice, 1.25 cups of water for the second cup of rice – which means 2.75 cups of water for two cups of rice.
One variable is evaporation – a pressure cooker is sealed, but can release some steam. A pressure cooker requires less water. The ratio, whether cooking the rice in a stovetop pan or pressure cooker, will depend on in part whether the rice has been rinsed or soaked, which partially hydrates the rice.
Instant Pot
A Pressure Multicooker
Rice can be cooked in the Instant Pot insert (cooking vessel), or by a bain-marie method: rice and water in a heat proof ceramic or glass vessel on a trivet above water in base of the pressure vessel. Some ceramic vessels such as Corningware can be used for cooking and serving, and for storage of left-over cooked rice. The cooking times are the same. The amount of rice that can be cooked in a ceramic vessel will be less than can be cooked in the Instant Pot insert.
Rice Program
Information posted by Instant Pot about the rice program:
It uses low pressure and “automatically adjusts the time based on the volume of rice [and water?] you add to the inner pot”;
It cooks “the ever-popular parboiled long grain white rice”, long grain white rice, and medium grain white rice;
Other pressure multi-cookers have similar programs. They are for medium and long grain white rice, and cook plain white steamed rice.
The Instant Pot web site recommends the rice program for medium and long grain white rice. It recommends using the pressure cooker program, rather than the rice program, for other kinds of rice. Laura Pazzaglia’s 2009 review of the Instant Pot (links in the Instant Pot manual pages for all models on her site) noted the limitations of the rice program:
Pressure programs designed to cook rice and grains. Because of the decreased evaporation, conventional rice recipes (water to grain ratios) will need to be updated for use in the cooker. We have written a comprehensive guide for pressure cooking rice and grains with the appropriate ratios and cooking times. If the “Rice” setting won’t let you adjust the cooking time, use the “Pressure Cook” setting and adjust the pressure to Instant Pot’s recommended “low” following the same cooking times and ratios recommended in our guide. Remember not to ever fill the inner pot more than the 1/2 full mark with rice/grains and their cooking liquid.
The pressure cooker programs of the Instant Pot allow choice of pressure (high or low), and cooking time. The rice program uses the low pressure settings of the device and automates the preheat, cooking and release/rest time.
In the rice program, in the Ultra model, the display shows a pressure cooking time of 12 minutes at the first step of starting the rice program. The time cannot be adjusted from the control panel. In the Ultra Panel, there is an option for Low/High, which does not appear to be a pressure choice within the rice program – it seems to affect cooking time. The display changes to Auto in my Ultra model when the program starts to run, and through the preheat. It changes to a time, in minutes, when the device comes to pressure. I have not used a Less-Normal-More Instant Pot, such as the Duo. The displayed time seems to be pressure cooking time, and is said to be based on the amount of water and rice, however the machine determines that.
There is contradictory information about white Basmati rice:
Instant Pot’s web material has indicates that white Basmati rice needed a different cooking time and ratio than American white long grain, and should be cooked in the pressure cooker program rather than the rice program. Recipes for the pressure cooker program (e.g. Pazzaglia, Nussenow) recommend 1 ¼ cups water to 1 cup of rice and 2 minutes at high pressure.
Madhur Jaffrey says in Instantly Indian Cooking, the rice program cooks rinsed white Basmati rice in her Duo model. She used rice and water at the ratio of 1:1.3.
The rice program is fine, for rinsed white Basmati rice at the right ratio.
Other Instant Pot Indian food recipes recommend the rice program for white Basmati rice: plain, in pilafs and in dry khichri (also spelled khichdi in English language resources – yellow and/or red lentils and rice).
The rice program can be used with other recipes. It may not lead to the expected outcome. Some questionable Instant Pot recipes are available. An example: MaoMaoMom’s Kitchen recipe for Chicken Potato Rice presented on her web site uses the rice program. That version of the recipe works. The version of the recipe presented in the 2018 Instant Pot Recipe Booklet said Rice Program, “set to 35 minutes”. A cooking time cannot be set in the rice program; cooking this for 35 minutes in the pressure cooking Program fails – the food burns. The comments on the online recipe indicate misunderstandings about the setting, and the version of that recipe presented in the manual.
Pressure Program
White Rice
The conventional pressure cooker advice for long grain white rice, not rinsed, is a few minutes at High Pressure, typically 3 minutes, followed by 10 minutes or more natural release (letting the pot cool). Christopher Kimball, in Milk Street, Fast and Slow recommends 10 minutes at Low Pressure followed by a natural release. Laura Pazzaglia used a 1:2 ratio of long grain white rice and water (1.5 cups rice, 3 cups water) incorrectly in her printed work, Hip Pressure Cooking (2014) but adjusted to 1:1.5 in her online guide.
For rinsed rice, writers recommend 1.25 cups of water (or less) to 1 cup of rice. Jill Nussenow’s caution about using ratios as the amount of rice is increased (above) is justified. I get fluffier rice by using slightly (as in only couple tablespoons) less fluid than 1 ¼ cups water for 1 cup of rice. I cook in a ceramic casserole on a trivet inside the Instant Pot (the bain marie method, above). I can do 1.5 cups of rice in 2 cups water in the casserole that fits in a 6 quart Instant pot. This produces fluffy distinct grains. It is dependent on the rice – age and quality.
Recipes for more complex rice dishes can be carried out in Instant Pots and other pressure multi-cookers, with limitations. There are pressure cooker techniques and recipes for:
pulao and pilaf;
risotto (normally made with starchy short grain white rice e.g. Arborio, Carnaroli);
paella (normally made with certain varieties of short grain white rice e.g. Bomba).
Brown Rice
Brown rice should be done in the pressure cooker program. It takes longer than white rice. A pressure multi-cooker including an Instant Pot or pressure cooker is somewhat faster than a pot on a stove. A pressure cooker recipe specifies the time at pressure. Where a recipe says the cooking time is 20 minutes, the device heats and boils the rice for 10-15 minutes before it reaches high pressure and the cooking temperature. It is simpler.
The pressure setting is usually the high setting. Low pressure might work but the cooking time would be longer than at high pressure. The cooking time depends on the rice and the way you like it. Jill Nussenow suggests that for some brown rice, the grower/seller’s “stovetop” suggested cooking time should be halved. Her default suggestion for brown rice is 22 minutes at high pressure. The ratio water to rice is normally 1.5 cups of water for the first cup of dry (neither soaked or rinsed) rice. For 1.5 cups of rice, 2 to 2 ¼ cups of water produces soft but not mushy rice, with 22 minutes at high pressure.
Resources
Resources and recipes for Instant Pot, pressure cookers and pressure multi-cookers are available in books and on line.
Dry beans are the dry ripe seeds of legumes, also known as pulses. Grain usually refers to the ripe seeds of cereal crops – grassy plants. Dry beans are grain within this definition, used in agriculture and commerce :
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes.
Dry beans are legumes, Fabaceae s.l. (or Leguminosae), a “family” of plants as defined by the APG System (III), which includes 730 genera of plants. Most legumes cultivated for human consumption are classified as being in one of these genera:
genus Lens – lentils
genus Vicea (including the genera known once as Vigna and Faba) – vetches, lupins, broad beans
genus Cicer – chickpeas
genus Pisam – peas
genus Glycine – soybeans
genus Arachis – peanuts
genus Phaseolus – (Central and South) American beans
Plants have been moved from the original regions where plants evolved by “natural” processes and by human intervention. Some human interventions occurred before historical records were made. The fact that dry beans were grown, stored or consumed can be inferred from archaeological evidence. Some interventions are a matter of historical record. One such event is known, perhaps euphemistically, among historians as the Columbian exchange in the period of European colonization (from the 15th through the early 20th centuries). One effect of this trade is that American legumes in the genus and species Phaseolus vulgaris have been cultivated and consumed in parts or Eurasia for centuries. Some writers interpolated or speculated that some legumes – e.g. black-eyed peas (an ingredient in the “Southern” recipe for “Hoppin’ John”) – were introduced to the Southern US by African persons brought to the US as chattel slaves, or by slave traders, or by entrepreneurs?
Many records are not known to consumers, farmers and suppliers of seeds and dry bean commodities. Botanical names are not used to identify the products of farming, in the markets. Many dry beans are known by common names that refer to cultivars: cultivated varieties. Some legumes are cultigens: plants that have been deliberately altered or selected by humans, by means of genetic modification, graft-chimaeras, plant breeding, or wild or cultivated plant selection. These plants have commercial value in horticulture, agriculture and forestry
Commodities
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization refers to dry beans as dry grains, and counts 11 types of dry pulses. Split pulses are commonly called grams. Some whole pulses are called also called grams, depending on the source of information. Beans harvested fresh, such as the green bean(which is on variant of the species Phaseolus Vulgaris, are not considered to be dry pulses, Nor are soybeans. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization list of dry pulses:
dry beans,
dry broad beans,
dry peas,
chickpeas,
cow peas,
pigeon peas,
lentils,
bambara beans,
vetches,
lupins, and
pulses not elsewhere specified.
Lentils are variants of one or two of the species in Lens, an Asian plant that was known to the Romans and cultivated in European areas of the Roman Empire. Lentils have a flat, disk-like shape. In markets, lentil may be identified by the colour of the hull or the hulled grain (see the Lentil#Types section on the Wikipedia page):
Red lentils are processed by hulling and splitting brown lentils. Red lentils are called dal in the languages of Indian farmers, markets and cooks. Asian brown lentils are small. North American farmers grow larger varieties of brown lentils for processing. I am not sure that red lentils, also described as pink or salmon, are different from hulled brown lentils;
In the North American grocery market, large brown and green lentils grown in the USA and Canada, are common.
Black lentils.
Yellow split lentils are hulled split moong (mung) beans. Yellow split lentils can be cooked like other split lentils and are regarded as dal in the languages of Indian farmers, markets and cooks.
Broad beans, and faba (or fava) beans are vetches (Vicia faba); Lupini beans are lupins. Broad beans and lupins are the original Mediterranean and European dried beans. Peas are variants of Pisum sativa.
Chickpeas are Cicer arietinum. There are two or three cultivars:
White chickpeas (garbanzo bean; Egyptian pea; kabuli chana) have been grown, cooked and consumed around the Mediteannean and in Asia for a few millenia of recorded history.
Dark (black and green) chickpeas (bengal gram) have been cultivated in Southern Asia (India),since before recorded history.
Urad beans, (black gram) and moong (mung) beans (green gram) are beans, not lentils and varieties of Vignamungo. Black urad beans, when hulled or split, are regarded as dal in Indian cooking. The whole beans, also, are cooked like dal – usually.
Cowpeas and black-eyed peas are beans, varieties of Vignaunguiculata.
Pigeon peas (red gram), are beans, classified as Cajanus cajan .
Many dry beans are variants of Phaseolus vulgraris. P. Vulgaris is a versatile species, evolved in the Americans. It includes green beans which are harvested fresh and brought to market fresh, or canned, or frozen. P. Vulgaris can grow as vines, or a bushes. P. Vulgaris vines were grown one of the three sisters grown and consumed by several North American First Nations (indigenous people). The dry bean P. Vulgaris variants used in Central and North American recipes include pinto, navy, Great Northern, white kidney, red kidney, cranberry and black turtle beans. Phaseoli were exported (Columbian exchange) to Europe and Asia within decades after European contact with South and Central America. White kidney beans and cranberry beans were adopted and adapted in Italian, Mediterranean, and European cooking and agriculture. White kidney beans are the Cannellini beans in Italian recipes. Descendants of the cranberry bean are known as Romano and Borlotti beans in Italian recipes. Red Kidney beans have become a north Indian food. Some sources recite old botanical taxonomy and refer to some Vicea dry beans evolved in Europe and Asia as Phaseolus.
In Indian cooking, dal refers to several dry legumes:
hulled or split legume seeds (pulses) – split peas, moong (mung) beans, red lentils.
whole grams: lentils, urad beans, mung beans, and pigeon peas.
split dark chickpeas and whole chickpeas, white or dark
red kidney beans.
In some Indian regions, red kidney beans are grown, processed, sold and/or cooked as Rajma. Red kidney beans are a varietal of Phaseolus vulgaris.
There are botanical and culinary differences between Asian urad beans (very small, hard black beans, botanically Vigna mungo) and medium small black turtle beans (botanically Phaseolus vulgaris.
Cooking dry legumes uses resources including time, labour and fuel or power. Canned beans are cooked to a point, canned, and cooked in the can at high temperature. Canned beans are high in sodium, except for some brands. After the food industry became able to present cooked or parcooked canned dry beans in the retail and restaurant supply markets, cooking dry beans meant heating and stirring for the majority of home cooks. Dry beans were or remained a culinary interest in the industrialized countries of Europe and America in the 2nd half of the 20th century:
Some recipes focused on traditional methods such as ceramic cooking vessels. Paula Wolfert and others writers who wrote about Mediterranean (southern Europe, the Aegean countries, the Levant and North Africa) cooking techniques almost unknown modern times. The fascination with travel fed culinary exploration. For instance Books by Yotam Ottolenghi in the early 21st century .
Works on central American cooking and south Asian cooking addressed the preparation of dry beans. Some discussed ceramics but most techniques involved metal cooking vessels.
Recipes were developed for vegetarians and vegans. Recipes were developed for slow cookers and pressure cookers; even microwave cooking. Anything that would braise or boil dry beans.
Dry pulses last years. Old pulses are drier and harder to cook. It is hard to tell when the beans were harvested – age is not easily judged from appearance.
Dry pulses have to be cooked in water. The cooking time depends on the seed, age, and cooking method. Many recipe books understate cooking time for some pulses. Dry beans can be soaked in water and cooked at the same time by simmering for a long time, soaked separately, or soaked and cooked fast and hot.
Clay pot cooking was used in many cultures – ceramics predated metal cooking vessels. The word olla is Spanish, based on Latin; the Romans had good pottery. After the decline of the Roman empire, the olla – the bulbous cooking pot – was the common ceramic vessel. Paula Wolfert wrote, in the late 20th century about cooking in ceramic pots. Rick Bayless wrote about ceramic beanpots in several books about Central American (Mexican) cooking, in the late 20th century. Mexican and Central American cooks simmered pinto beans and black (turtle) beans in an olla in enough water to keep the beans covered in water through the entire process. With this method, the beans were not soaked or pre-cooked. According to Rick Bayless writing in Mexico, One Plate at a Time (Scribner, 2000), at p. 192, cooking in an olla heated the beans and water to 205-210 degrees (F). The beans would be cooked for several hours. Little water was lost to evaporation. The beans absorbed much of the water, and the remaining water became a broth. Some of the constraints on this method and device were starting early enough to get the beans cooked by meal time, using enough water, and keeping the heat low and steady.
Stoves and ovens became the preferred approach where hot stoves were workable, including Europe and North America. Stovetop elements and burners heat the contents of metal pots above the boiling point of water, even at the lowest settings. With stoves, metal pots and cheap energy or fuel, the prevalent approach became to soak and boil.
A ceramic or metal beanpot or casserole (e.g. a Dutch Oven) filled with beans and water can be put in an oven set as low as 250 F. to simmer the beans slowly; many recipes suggest a hotter oven. The constraints on slow simmering and baking are starting early enough to get the beans cooked by meal time, using enough water, keeping the heat steady and limiting the escape of steam from the pot.
The 20th century traditional slow cooker gets the beans and water hot enough to simmer. Slow cooker times dependent on the device, and the amount of beans and water, are often unreliable. Some dry beans – mainly small split lentils – will cook in a slow cooker in few hours on the traditional low setting without soaking.
Rick Bayless agreed in Mexican Everyday (2005) that a slow cooker was a method of cooking pinto beans, black turtle beans and some other phaseolus beans – without soaking. His recipes use 6 hours on the traditional high setting – which is normally calibrated below 205 degrees Celsius (simmering not boiling). Other slow cooker approaches work with “low” slow cooker setting without soaking:
Black turtle beans can be done in 6 hours;
Pinto beans take up to about 8 hours.
Many dry pulses require hours on the high slow cooker setting: urad beans, even when the pulses have been soaked: rajma (red kidney beans) and chana dal (chickpeas).
A pressure multi-cooker – i.e. an electric pressure cooker (e.g. Instant Pot) with a slow cooker program does not work like a traditional slow cooker. Not all pressure multi-cooker models reach and maintain the expected or optimal slow cooking temperature. Multi-cookers may (e.g. Instant Pots) refer to the “low” slow cooker cooking temperature as “medium” and use the term “low” for a “keep warm” setting.
A pressure cooker will cook dry pulses. Modern pressure cooking cookbooks and resources have trust-worthy suggested times.
Soaking before cooking reduces the cooking time for dry beans. It depends on the seed coat (hull), size and the cellular structures of the bean. Soaking is often assumed or overlooked in recipes and discussions. Some recipes, as noted above, omit soaking. There are variations on soaking:
long-soaking in at ambient (room) temperature,
quick-soaking in boiling water; Some recipes cook dry beans for a short time in boiling water before baking them’
soaking in brine,
adding baking soda to the cooking water.
Some recipes for some pulses aim to break the pulse down to a sauce, soup or gruel. Some will call for mashing a few cooked beans to thicken the sauce. Many aim to get the beans soft, but whole.
Steamed rice is rice cooked in water. Cooked rice can used in a dish, as an accompaniment to other dishes, fried or processed further, or added to other dishes e.g. Nasi Goreng is preparation of fried cooked white rice. All rice delivers carbohydrates, a source of glucose, an essential nutrient.
White rice has been milled to remove the husk or bran and germ, leaving the white kernel of endosperm with the carbs. White rice can be cooked quickly, saving time and fuel/energy. Brown or whole rice has been dried, but the bran has been left. It is heat treated to delay the oils in the bran turning the rice rancid. Brown rice has more micronutrients and fiber than white rice. Roger Owen, in his essay “A Rice Landscape”, published in Sri Owen’s The Rice Book (1993) wrote: “… brown rice always costs more because there is less demand for it, and because the bran … milled off … would have been sold separately.” The demand for brown rice has increased because it has become perceived as a healthy whole food, and because restaurant chefs and food writers have developed palatable preparations.
Steamed rice is not fried first (as with some pilaf, biryani, Mexican styles). It is not cooked as a risotto, paella, rice pudding, congee or other flavoured rice dish. Salt is optional; it is added for taste. Steamed rice can be cooked in a pot or cooking vessel over a heat source, or in a rice cooker appliance. Pressure cookers and pressure multi-cooker appliances (most multi-cookers are basically electric pressure cookers – e.g. Instant Pot) can do steamed rice. The slow cooker can cook rice in a soup or stew. It does not do well with plain rice where the goal is fluffy grains.
Rinsing white rice removes the fine rice talc that makes the cooked rice sticky. Rinsing is the correct preparation for white Basmati and long grain white rice, where the grains should be cooked but not sticky. This editors and authors of Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen announced this as concept 30 in The Science of Good Cooking (2012): “Rinsing (Not Soaking) Makes Rice Fluffy). Cooks have done this for centuries without the imprimatur of ATK. Rinsing is normal for white basmati but uncommon with long grain white rice grown in the Southern USA, and with short grain rices. Rinsing is not useful for short grain rice that is supposed to be creamy (for risotto) or sticky (for sushi and other Asian dishes). Or with with Spanish Bomba or other paella varieties. ATK suggests soaking the rice before cooking makes rice soggy or sticky. It depends on the ratio of water to wet rice that is being cooked, and the method and tools used by the cook. It is a step followed in many recipes.
Steaming is an absorption preparation. Sri Owen, in The Rice Book (1993), said that steaming rice in a vessel on a heat source should be seen as a 2 step process. First, rice is simmered in a water in an uncovered pot at the boiling point until the rice has absorbed the water. The second step is “finishing”. All methods depend on measurement of rice and water. Owen describes 4 ways:
Cover the vessel and leaving it on very low heat to steam the rice internally, taking it off the heat and leaving it covered;
Moving the rice into a vessel such as collander and steaming the rice suspended over boiling water. This is the method recommended by Jamie Oliver;
Moving the rice into a casserole, covering it and baking in an oven;
Moving the rice into a microwaving vessel, covering with the usual wrap or cover, and a few minutes in a microwave oven.
Also, it is possible to put rice in ample boiling water and strain it like pasta. Some cookbooks promote this; many suggest this as an option among other methods.
A conventional method of steaming rice is a version of process 1 above. The rice (dry or rinsed or soaked) is added to boiling water and the temperature is lowered to a simmer, and the pot covered tightly:
Put the measured amount of rice in the measured amount of water and bring the water to a boil, or add rice to boiling water and wait for the water to heat back up to a simmer,
Reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover the pot, leave it covered and set a timer.
Remove from heat and rest off heat, covered for 10-15 minutes. Set the timer for the final rest.
This works best when the temperature is brought down at the right moment. It requires a pot that disperses the heat evenly, a tight lid to hold in the steam, and control of heat and time. The recipes for this technique emphasize a tight lid on the pot and other techniques to limit evaporation. The method works within a range of rice/water ratios and times. The results may be more or less fluffy, absorbent or sticky.
Package directions for the standard varieties go high on water; many recipes do. This will lead to soggy overcooked rice. The rice recipe at What’s Cooking America has a table of rice to water ratio and cooking times for several kinds of rice. The instructions at that site for cooking white rice are a bit contradictory. There is a concise article by Fine Cooking magazine and some videos and notes at the Kitchn site. The normally stated ratios of long grain white rice to water is 1 cup of dry rice to 1.5 to 1.75 cups of water:
CI/ATK recommends the low end of this range, 3 cups of water for 2 cups of rinsed white long grain rice;
Sri Owen recommends 2 1/2 cups water to 2 cups of white rice;
Jill Nussenow, the Veggie Queen, suggests 1.5 cups of water for the first cup of rice, 1.25 cups of water for the second cup of rice – which means 2.75 cups of water for two cups of rice. Some of her recipes are for use in a pressure cooker, but this approach works with stovetop cooking.
The cooking time for white rice in a stovetop pan can be from 12 to 20 minutes. It depends on the stove, the heat, the pot, the rice, evaporation.
White Basmati rice, a long grain aromatic rice originating from Northern India, Pakistan and Nepal can be cooked by the slow simmer method. Refer to: article from the Guardian; Madhur Jaffry recipe from the Telegraph. I like the rice fluffy and go light on the water. 1.5 cups of water to 1 cup of rice is too much water for Basmati rice. Ratios and times for steel pot with a clad disc base:
2.33 cups of water to 2 cups of rice, simmering 23 minutes, or
2 cups of water to 1.5 cups of rice, simmering 20 minutes .
Package directions for brown rice tend to suggest 2 1/2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. Many recipes suggest 2 cups of water to one cup of brown rice:
CI/ATK suggests 1.5 cups of rice in 2.33 cups of water.
Sri Owen suggests that white and brown rice should have the same amount of water for some techniques.
Steaming brown rice takes a longer cooking time – 40 minutes or so in a rice cooker or in a pot on a stove.
An Instant Pot or other pressure multi-cooker, or any pressure cooker can save time and energy and produce good results with white rice using the rice program and with brown rice using the pressure cooker program. The pressure cooker is not faster but with steps controlled by timers and sensors is more convenient. The rice/water ratio ican be the same as for a stovetop device, or a little less water on the basis that there may be less evaporation.
