I know that kidney beans contain a toxin and the toxin is released when they've been soaked for several hours. However, I've come across a few web pages that claim kidney beans don't need to be soaked if you're cooking them in a pressure cooker. Does anyone know if there's any truth in this? I normally soak them for a minimum of six hours and then cook them in a pressure cooker.

Cheers.

My understanding is that it's not the soaking that removes the toxins but cooking. The kidney bean needs to reach sufficient internal temperature to destroy the toxic agent, I forget (if ever I knew) the name. I think soaking simply reduces cooking time - perhaps having water logged right into the heart of the bean makes it easier for heat to get into the heart of the bean? Not sure. But I am fairly sure it's the heat not soaking that destroys the toxins.

Maybe someone with more scientific bent can comment? Lapis? :)

yep, Kavey, that's my understanding too, the beans need to be cooked (boiled hard) for at least 10 minutes to destroy the toxin.

I always used tinned beans, of any kind.

So to cook them from raw in a pressure cooker would be ok? I know the pressure cooker gets hotter than just boiling at or around sea level.

It's a great forum this btw.

Afraid I'm like Lapis and just use tinned ones. I have neither the organisation, time nor patience to be soaking and boiling beans for hours on end.

Probably the few extra pennies on a tin are well offset by savings on your electricity bill!

I prefer tinned beans because they taste better to me. The beans haven't been dried, and don't fall apart once cooked. Pulses I cook from raw, but I don't like pressure cookers, I like to monitor what I'm cooking.

Hello Lapis

I fully understand that you want to monitor things as you cook them. It is like I like to cook most things in pans/pots with glad lids :-)!

However, if you get the timing right, as most Indians learn to do over a lifetime of pressure cooker use, nothing falls apart, except for odd accidents. Time and fuel saved over a period is tremendous.

I am in India at the moment and everyone here seems to have 2-3-4 pressure cookers of different sizes, cooking 2-3 things simultaneously in them. I remember my mum had her first prestige cooker in 1957, a gift from my ever progressive father. After an initial fear of it bursting, she never cooked her dals, beans etc. in anything else from then on! There is a recipe on my website for pressure cooked dough parathas, which was my mother and father's invention. This wouldn't be there without a pressure cooker! See http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=10206

Mamta

A different idea altogether, using pressure cooker for chapati dough.

A thick batter --- but how thick Mamta?

Should the batter bowl be left uncovered?

Hope you are enjoying your time in India, I had plans for December put it got postponed till early next near due to high work volume.

Cheers

Hello Rajneesh

As it happens, I am sitting right next to my brother here in India, who wrote down this recipe for me. I have made the additions to the recipe so it is clearer now. He has promsed to make them for breakfast tomorrow :-), so will have some pictures too in near future. If you make them, please take some too.

Mamta