Beans and Rice Together in Pressure Cooker ?

[Skylark]

If you want to make a one pot pressure cooker meal with white rice, use lentils or black eyed peas.

[frank_f]

I just tried cooking kidney beans and white rice in a pressure cooker a few nights ago (unfortunately, before this thread started).

I put in 1 cup rice, 1 cup beans (soaked overnight and drained), garlic and onion (prefried in the PC bottom), some spices and some cut up pork, all with 6 cups of water. Brought it up to pressure, reduced the heat and cooked for 25 minutes.

It was a disaster.

I bailed at 25 minutes because I started to smell burning. There was no water left when I opened it and the bottom inch of rice/bean mix had fused itself to the bottom of the pan.

The top portion of the mix had mush for rice, rocks for beans and, besides burnt, no flavour at all.

It was quite a stroke of luck to learn how to do everything wrong in my first attempt at using a PC. Things can only go up from here.

Frank

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by frank_f

It was quite a stroke of luck to learn how to do everything wrong in my first attempt at using a PC. Things can only go up from here.

Frank

Now that's positive thinking!

[cfarrar]

Try wheat couscous. It uses less water, less propane, and it's good for you (ideal balance of protein, carbs, and fiber)! We eat more couscous than rice or bread, combined.

[frank_f]

Couscous is a pasta isn't it? Wouldn't that be straight carbs?

[tager]

Whole wheat has more protein and fiber.

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by frank_f

Couscous is a pasta isn't it? Wouldn't that be straight carbs?

Yep. Unless its made from whole wheat, in which case it has a little more protein and fiber, but it's still pasta

[frank_f]

This is one of those infrequent "Aha" moments for me . Thanks guys.

On the bright side, I do get a lot of "Oh-Oh" moments and even a few "OMG" moments. Life is for learning.

[JanetGroene]

IMHO the appeal of bean-rice dishes is the texture contrast, color contrast and different tastes of the two things cooked separately. Here's one way to make the two in one pressure cooker. Form a "bowl" out of aluminum foil, add one part water to one part rice and float on two inches of water. Do not close foil. Pressure cook rice and remove your perfectly steamed rice in its foil. Now cook soaked beans your way. When they are done, put cooked rice in its foil over the hot beans and put on cooker lid just enough to heat the rice. Spoon rice onto plates, ladle with cooked beans, discard foil. Two dishes, one pot to wash.

[cfarrar]

Couscous is a pasta isn't it? Wouldn't that be straight carbs?

Whole wheat couscous has 2x the protein of brown rice, and 3x the fiber. Four servings of couscous requires 1 cup of water and no simmering. Brown rice requires 2 1/4 cups of water and 45 minutes of simmering. White rice cooks faster, but it's mostly starch (ie, carbs).

Can't argue about the texture, though! Rice and beans go well together...

[David M]

I asked my wife, who is a much better cook than I. She said the beans must be soaked in water overnight ahead of time for the simple fact that beans take a longer time to absorb water than does rice. She said there is no way for completely dry beans and dry rice to finish cooking at the same time.

She also said you can only cook rice for so long before it becomes a broken down pasty starch that you would never want to eat.

[callmecrazy]

Originally Posted by David M

I asked my wife, who is a much better cook than I. She said the beans must be soaked in water overnight ahead of time for the simple fact that beans take a longer time to absorb water than does rice. She said there is no way for completely dry beans and dry rice to finish cooking at the same time.

She also said you can only cook rice for so long before it becomes a broken down pasty starch that you would never want to eat.

Your wife is correct that soaking dried beans is a prerequisite. I assumed we were all on the same page and talking about cooking brown rice with pre-soaked beans

I'll reiterate that long grain brown rice is much hardier than white rice, it doesn't become a sticky mushy paste like white rice, even if you cook it for an entire hour. I'm sure it happens at a certain point, but the average cook time for brown rice is between 35 and 45 minutes, depending on how long you let it boil before simmering (this is based on regular stovetop cooking, not PC). Quite a few beans will cook up in 45 minutes or less, given that they've already been soaked over night. But not all of them, so be sure to do some label reading. Also, the longer you soak them the less time it takes to cook.

The only bean that cooks as fast as white rice is green or brown lentils.

I think I'll have to break out the pressure cooker now to prove this to myself , it's been hiding long enough anyway...

[frank_f]

That's one of the mistakes I made. I used white rice (non-parboiled) instead of brown. Lesson learned.

Now, about brown rice. If I'm correct, brown rice is rice that basically hasn't been processed other than winnowing for excess husks.

How is it then that I can't find big bags of brown rice and the 1kg (2lb) bags that I do find are more expensive than a 10kg (20lb) bag of white?

Sorry for the thread drift.

[callmecrazy]

It depends... I get a 5lbs bag of medium grain brown rice in the Asian section of one of my local stores for about $2 more than a 5lbs bag of white rice... But at the other stores, the difference is similar to what you are seeing. Then there is another store, a bit out of the way, that sells large 20lbs bags at almost equal prices.
So it all depends on where you go and where it comes from...

Brown rice is dehusked, but not polished...

Rice facts: (Copied from here and here)

"Dehusked, unpolished rice grains are covered by the nutrient-rich bran and aleurone layers. Because these layers are rich in lipids they oxidises rapidly when exposed to air, hence the grains turn rancid and untasty during storage. Polishing, on the other hand, produces rice grains devoid of the nutrients contained in the outer layers but not susceptible to changes in colour, odour and taste."

"In much of Asia, brown rice (Chinese: Hanyu Pinyin: caomi; Japanese: genmai) is associated with poverty and wartime shortages, and in the past was rarely eaten except by the sick, the elderly and as a cure for constipation. This traditionally looked-down-upon kind of rice is now more expensive than common white rice, partly due to its low consumption, difficulty of storage and transport, and higher nutritional value."

[callmecrazy]

So just like everything else in an American style groceries, the better it is for you, the more expensive it is, even though it probably contains less ingredients, goes through less processing, and is probably even packaged in cheaper materials and shipped across the country instead of overseas...