Instant pot cooking times

These are my notes - the pressure cooker, especially for beans, grains, and vegetables, has been changing how we cook at eat. All the times are for high pressure unless noted otherwise.

We make grains with bowl-in-pot method, where one adds liquid and grains to a bowl, and that bowl goes on a trivet or in a steaming insert in the pressure cooker. One cup water still goes into the pressure-cooker pot. The water in the big pot  creates the steam that heats up the water and grain in the inner bowl, and provides moisture that limits evaporation of the liquid from the inner bowl. 

Cleanup is much easier with the bowl-in-pot method. The food is already in a serving bowl, and is also already in a container that can go in the fridge. We mostly use glass food-storage bowls, and occasionally we use a stainless steel-bowl. This way one can also cook a small amount of food - there is no need for a full cup of liquid in the inner bowl as the water in the pressure cooker pot is used to generate steam., An added benefit is that the food never burns, and that the keep-hot functionality does not dry the food out. Bowl-in-pot cooking time is about 2 minutes more than when one cooks food directly in the pressure-cooker pot.

Buckwheat steamed with bowl-in-pot method

Vegetables - steam

• Beets: 12 minutes, quick release, chunk them up into 1-inch-sized pieces
  
• Broccoli: 0-1 mins on low pressure, quick release
• Large floretes: 1 min on low pressure, quick release
• Butternut squash small cubes: 3 min, quick release
• Butternut squash large pieces: 8 min, quick release
• Delicata squash halves: 8 min, quick release
• Cauliflower: 1 min, low pressure, quick release
• Celeriac cubes: 3-4 min, quick release
• Savoy cabbage: add a pinch of salt, 1-2 mins, quick release
• Corn on the cob: 4 mins, quick release
• Brussels sprouts: 3-4 mins, quick release
• Cabbage, sliced: 2 mins, quick release (add to sauteed onion, garlic, and chili flakes)
• Green beans: 3 minutes, quick release
• Fresh green peas, 1 minute, low pressure, quick release

Starch - steam

• Potatoes: 2cm - 3/4 inch pieces, peeled, slightly salted: 4 mins, quick release
• Whole mid-sized russet potatoes: 10 mins, natural erlease.
• Sweet potato, whole: poke holes, steam small potatoes for 10 minutes, large for 18 mins, release steam after about 10 minutes

Pasta

• Use 1 cup water for 4 oz pasta. You can double the amount of water if you like your pasta very cooked - some would say overcooked.
• Cooking time is (time on the packet) divided by 2. If you like more al-dente pasta, subtract additional 2 minutes.
• Important: Let the pressure fall naturally for 5 minutes and then release the steam manually. If you let the pasta sit in the liquid for longer, it will be overcooked - which some people like.
• Cook pasta in plain water and salt or miso, or cook it in tomato sauce, or any other sauce that contains enough water. If using sauce, use a little more sauce than just plain water to offset the dry ingredients in the sauce. 

Beans, soaked for 24-48 hours 

We get beans at Rancho Gordo. We always soak the beans in the fridge for at least 24h, some benefit from even longer soaking. We like our beans well cooked, creamy, and find published cooking times by Rancho Gordo too short.

Most thin-skinned well-soaked beans cook nicely in 11-12 minutes under high pressure with natural release. We experimented with low pressure as well, and we like the results better - the gentler cooking leaves the beans shape more intact and it results in a creamier texture. Surprisingly, 35 minutes of cooking time seems to work great for any soaked bean, the results have been consistently great. This is our default approach now. 

If you did not cook the beans for long enough there is no worry.  Make sure there is enough liquid in the pot, seal it back, and cook for another few minutes under pressure, until the beans are cooked to your taste.

• Alubia Blanca: 9 mins, natural release
• Ayocote negro: 23 mins, natural release, or 35 minutes, low pressure, natural release
• Black eye pea: 11 mins, natural release
• Borlotto di Veneto: 11 mins, natural release 
• Cranberry: 8 minutes, natural release
• Christmas lima: 16 mins, natural release
• Domingo Rojo: 22 minutes, natural release
• Frijol Negro Santanero from Oaxaca, 36 mins, natural release (after soaking!)
• Garbanzo: 8 mins, natural release
• Marcella: 11 minutes, natural release
• Mayocoba: 11 minutes, natural release
• Midnight black: 23 mins, natural release, or 35 mins, low pressure, natural release
• Moro: 15 minutes, natural release
• Pinto: 10 mins, natural release
• Royal corona: soak for 2 days, 25 mins, natural release, or 35 mins at low pressure, natural release
• San Franciscano: 13 minutes, natural release
• Santa Maria Pinquito: 22 minutes, natural release
• Scarlet Runner: 22 minutes, natural release
• Vaquero: 11 minutes, natural release
• Yellow eye: 10 minutes, natural release
• Yellow Indian Woman: 12 mins, natural release

Lentils

We mostly get lentils from Rancho Gordo, along with the beans. Just like the Rancho Gordo beans are consistently of a superior quality, we find the same for their lentils. 

The general pattern for cooking lentils is 1 part lentil to 1 3/4 parts of liquid, cooked for 6-12 minutes with natural release, with the exception of red lentils that can take as little as 3 minutes to cook. Seasoning just with salt is enough, adding some fried onions and garlic, and other spices adds to the flavor. I prefer to fry the onions on the stove and then transfer them to Instant Pot. While this defeats the purpose of a universal cooking apparatus, I feel I have a better temperature control when saute-ing on a stove, so I don't mind cleaning an extra pan for superior results.

• Beluga lentils: 1 cup lentils + 1 3/4 cup water + spices, 10 minutes (6-12), natural release
• Green lentils: 1 cup lentils + 1 3/4 cup water + spices, 8 minutes (6-10), natural release
• French green lentils: 1 cup lentils + 1 3/4 cup water + spices, 10 minutes (6-12), natural release
• Red lentils: 1 cup lentils + 1 3/4 cup water + spices, 3-10 minutes, natural release (10 mins for complete mush, which is what one sometimes wants with red lentils)
• Split pea soup: use at least 4:1 water to lentils. 10 mins after sautéing vegetables. Natural release.

Grains - bowl-in-pot

• Amarath: 2-2.5X liquid, 6-8 mins + natural release
• Buckwheat: 2X liquid, 3 mins + natural release
• In a bowl on a trivet, 2 parts liquid to 1 part buckwheat, 4 to 5 mins + natural release
• Millet: 2.5X liquid, 9 mins + natural release
• 2X liquid if you like millet a bit more dry
• Miso and coconut oil add amazing flavor
• Quinoa: rice program, 2X liquid, or 1 min + natural release
• In a bowl on a trivet: 2X liquid, 4-6 mins + natural release.
• Teff: Rice program, 3.5-4X liquid, or 1 min + natural release
• Wild rice: 2.5X liquid, 35 mins + natural release
• White sticky / glutinous rice: In a bowl on a trivet, 1 cup rice + 3/4 cups liquid, 10 mins + natural release
• Brown sticky / glutinous rice: In a bowl on a trivet, 1 cup rice + 3/4 cups liquid, 20 mins + natural release
• Black rice: In a bowl on a trivet, 1 cup rice + 1 cups liquid, 20 mins + natural release
• Oats, rolled: 3 parts of liquid to 1-2 parts of oats, 3-4 mins + natural release
• Steel cut oats, regular: In a bowl on a trivet, 3 parts liquid to 1 part oats, 18 mins + natural release
• Sorghum: In a bowl on a trivet, 2 parts liquid to 1 part sorghum, 25 mins + natural release

Tofu and meat:

• Tofu sticks: season slightly, steam for 5 mins, quick release
• Chicken: 25 mins, natural release
• Lamb shanks: 35 mins, natural release
• Short ribs: 48 mins, natural release
• Pork belly: 45 mins, natural release
• Stewing beef: 25 mins, natural release

Beef broth:

• 3 hours: water + soup bones + salt
• remove soup bones
• 45 mins: bone broth, beef shank, carrot, onion, celery, shiitake stems
• Cool over night in a fridge, remove the hardened fat before consuming or freezing

Mushroom broth:

• 2 hours at high pressure: water or vegetarian dashi, and a few handfuls of dry mushrooms
• salt to taste

References:

• Rancho Gordo table with cooking times for Instant Pot- we typically find those to be too short.
• Cooking vegetables in Instant Pot.
• Cooking grains in Instant Pot
• Cooking rice in Instant Pot.
• Cooking lentils in Instant Pot.

Coconut turmeric milk

This is a soothing evening beverage that seems to improve sleep, and also helps with inflammation. Most of all, it is super tasty! We started making it on doctor's suggestion, and we liked it so much that we continue making it. Recording it here so that we don't forget!

Ingredients for 2 cups:

• 1 cup low-fat coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• 1 inch ginger root, slicet thinly
• 1-2 sticks cinnamon
• 1 star anise
• 5 cloves
• 1 TBS turmeric
• a good grinding of black pepper - boosts for turmeric absorbtion
• 2 TBS honey

Preparation:

• Bring all ingredients to boil
• Simmer for 8 minutes
• Strain, cool
• Add some more pepper if needed
• Drink while it is still hot

Millet porridge with peaches

Few things beat a good porridge. Oats are, of course, the default in the West, and rice porridge rules in the East. The chicken rice porridge I had on Singapore Airlines of all places opened a whole new perspective for me. I am yet to recreate that goodness.

Millet porridge, however, is quite common in Slovenia. In the US, we have no cooked it so much because it cooks forever in comparison to millet in Slovenia. We mill it quite a bit for baking, for example for super tasty gluten-free muffins, or for adding amazing texture to clafoutis. Porridge, however, has remained under utilized.

No more. The change came from a simple test when we soaked millet in water for a day or two before cooking, and it was suddenly done in no time. The next breakthrough was when Jasna found a recipe where they suggested cooking sliced peaches with the millet - it adds flavor, and no sugar is needed. Finally, I found a suggestion to use some coconut milk, and Jasna asked me to add some cardamom. The result was a porridge worthy of any table.

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 3/4 cup millet, soaked for 24h or more
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup water
• Alternatively: 1.5 cups water and 1TBS coconut oil
• 1-2 peaches, cut into 3/4 inch chunks, approximately
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• seeds from 2 cardamom pods, ground with mortar and pestle
• pinch of salt

Procedure:

• Soak millet in water in the fridge for at least a day, two days works even better.
• Add all the ingredients to a pot, bring to boil and simmer until millet is cooked. It will take approximately 10 minutes. Add more water and cook some more if millet is too crunchy for your taste.
• Top with almond butter and shredded coconut, or with whatever tickles your imagination.

Master recipe for gluten-free muffins: millet, buckwheat, quinoa, sorghum, amarath

Our friend Rok offered a solution when we were looking for gluten-free bread-like recipes. It was his mom's buckwheat muffins. We tried them, and they were delicious!

Of course, I immediately glanced at our grain mill and flashed a big smile. It was game time!What variations of the recipe can one produce? It turned out that many variations worked well. This is intended to be a master recipe that one can use to exercise their own imagination.

We love the concept of savory bread-like muffins. We freeze them in muffin cups, and we defrost them one at a time: 44 seconds on high in our microwave seems to be a perfect time to get a hot fresh muffin!

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 2 TBS chia seeds soaked in 500ml = 17oz warm water
• 500g = 18oz gluten-free flour. Here are a few of the options that I have tried
• 500g buckwheat flour
• 300g buckwheat, 100g millet, 100g quinoa
• 200g buckwheat, 200g millet, 100g quinoa
• 200g buckwheat, 200g millet, 100g amarath
• 225g sorghum, 175g millet, 100g amarath
• Note: amarath is easiest to mill in a coffee grinder, the grain is super small
• 2TBS ground flax seeds. Grind them in a coffee grinder, NOT in the grain mill.
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 TBS vinegar
• 1/2 cup approximately sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup approximately hemp seeds

Procedure:

• Soak chia seeds in the warm water for at least 10 minutes until they swell. Stir or whisk a few times to avoid clumps
• While chia seeds are soaking, turn the oven to 400F.
• Put paper muffin cups in a muffin pan. This recipe yields 12 muffins.
• Mix the combination of flours you are using. I mill them fresh straight into a mixing bowl. First I weigh the grains in separate bowls, so that I can mill them one at a time. Milling one type of grain at a time is important because the mill may need a different setting for each type of grain.
• Add ground flax seed if you are using it.
• Sift baking powder and baking soda in the bowl with the flours, add the salt and mix thoroughly. 
• Add the seeds (or nuts if you choose to use them) and mix well.
• Add the liquids: soaked chia seeds with all the water, olive  oil, and vinegar.
• Mix well.
• Divide equally into the muffin cups.
• Bake at 400F for 35 minutes. Note - 30 mins may suffice in your oven, I suggest to experiment.
• Cool and eat.
• Freeze in a ziploc bag, defrost one at a time in a microwave. 44 seconds  on high in ours, yours will be different.

Note: 

We make a double recipe in a 24-muffin pan. The baking time in our oven is the same, 35 minutes. We freeze the muffins as soon as they cool down. 

Corn gazpacho

Recently we went to Napa to buy some beans at Rancho Gordo, and used that as an excuse for a mini trip. We were unlucky, Napa had some kind of a parade going on. It was packed, and parking was impossible to find. Our luck turned and we ended up having lunch in La Taberna, we walked in just as they were opening up. The choice of the restaurant was perfect, the melange of tapas we ordered was the best lunch we have had in a long time. Standing out was corn gazpatcho. Smooth, silky, sweet yet the flavors were balanced. It also looked really pretty, which makes it really unfortunate that I failed to take a picture.

I started looking for recipes for corn gazpacho and started to tinker. It didn't take too long before I had something that has been causing me to go to the farmers market to get fresh corn. Let me record the recipe so that I don't forget like I did with the tomato gazpacho I made a few years ago.

Ingredients:

• kernels from 3-4 ears of corn
• 2 medium size cucumbers washed and peeled if you want pure yellow color and less bitterness. 
• 1/2  sweet onion, chopped
• 1 large yellow pepper, chopped
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 2 medium yellow tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely
• 1 tsp miso paste - not too much, just to add a hint of umami
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp hot sauce, optional
• juice of 1/2 medium lemon
• 1-2 TBS rice vinger
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup water or kelp water

Preparation:

Blend all of the ingredients, and let stand in the fridge for a few hours or a day or two for the flavors to combine.

We prefer this gazpacho very smooth, so we blend it at the highest speed. At the same time, do not blend to long if you have a powerful blender like Vitamix so that the ingredients don't heat up too much. 

You can also leave gazpacho somewhat chunky. I prefer to introduce texture through garnish - some fresh corn kernels, green onion, pine nuts, diced ripe tomato, all of those have worked very nicely.

Sourdough, leek, corn, and quinoa pancakes

Pancake breakfast! A Sunday classic. Well, not where I grew up 😀

I will admit that I find standard American pancakes somewhat bland. Add ricotta, or sourdough, now we are talking. And in particular, I am developing a taste for savory pancakes - no sugar spike, good fiber content, and much more interesting flavors than straight out sweetness.

Today's experiment turned out particularly well. I set a goal for myself that I want a low-fat fare, with a broad nutritional content, and an explosive taste. Quite a challenge! Immediately, sourdough came to mind, as it makes everything taste better. I have whose super sweet corn kernels in the freezer that I use to provide sweetness, and I'd balance it for color and flavor with leeks. Add some umami in the form of miso paste. For protein and fiber we can throw in some quinoa. Seasoning, keep it simple with just a bit of salt and pepper. Remember, miso paste packs a punch. For decadence, serve it all with a poached egg. I had a plan!

Here is how the pancakes turned out. Both Jasna and I had to reach for seconds!

Procedure

• Feed your sourdough starter the night before. Also feed the starter that you took our of your starter jar, and leave it covered on the counter overnight. In the morning, it will be super active.

The next day:

• Take 1/2 cup dry quinoa. 
• Toast quinoa in a sauce pan, tossing it periodically so that it does not burn.
• When quinoa starts to release fragrance, add 1 cup of preferably boiling water. Maybe a bit more than a cup, because the hot pot will immediately cause water to evaporate.
• Add 1/2 TSP miso paste, bring to boil, and stir to dissolve miso paste.
• Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about 10 minutes, until quinoa absorbs the liquid.
• Take off the stove to cool down.

While quinoa is cooling, or sooner if you want a jump start:

• Add 1/2 cup of frozen super sweet corn kernels to a medium sized bowl.
• Thoroughly clean and thinly slice about 1/2 of a medium sized leek. Use both the white and the green part of the leek.
• Add the sliced leek to the bowl.
• Add somewhat cooled quinoa. I eyeballed about 1/2 of cooked quinoa.
• Add a pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper.
• Mix well, this will cool the quinoa some more.
• Add 1 egg, and about a cup of souordough starter.
• Mix well. Taste for seasoning if you wish, or fry up a small piece to adjust seasoning.

To cook pancakes:

• Add a touch of high-smoking-point oil to a non-stick pan, and spoon in 4 dollops of batter. The size is your choice. Spread the batter a bit in the pan.
• Fry until golden and the bubbles appear in the middle of a pancake. Flip, and fry until the other side is golden, and take out. Repeat until you have used batter.

While you are frying pancakes:

• To a medium-size pot add water to 3/4 height, a good pinch of salt, and a TBS or three of vinegar.
• Bring that to a simmer.
• Crack an egg in a small bowl.
• With a spoon, go around the edge of the pot to create a vortex in the middle. No need to be too aggressive.
• Slide the egg in the middle of the vortex. The spinning water will keep the egg nicely together.
• Keep the water barely at the simmer for 4-5 minutes.
• Take the egg out with a spider strainer, dry it on a paper towel, and serve on top of a pancake.

Note:

• The vortex for poached eggs is not really needed, and it gets clunky when you are poaching more than one egg. But it is a gentle vortex, so you can create it with other eggs already in the water.
• The critical part is that the water should be barely at the simmer, or barely under the simmer. That way, the egg will not get destroyed when it is tossed around by boiling water.

Ayocote negro beans, millet, and tahini sauce

Our love affair with beans has been going on for a long time. It started slowly with a desire to eat healthy, and especially to find food that does not cause blood sugar spikes. Beans are at the top of the list. It was OK, though not at the top of our list of gourmet foods.

Then, years ago, I found myself in Chicago and went to eat at Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill. I still find it hard to grok that in the Bay Area I still have not found Mexican food as good as what I had in Chicago. Admittedly, I have not looked too hard. The most memorable part of the meal in Frontera Grill were basic black beans. They were savory, had great texture, one could not have enough. I started to look hard for instructions for how to cook beans properly. Clearly, there was a trick I had no idea about.

The quality of our beans improved dramatically, and we ate them more and more. And just loved the flavor and texture of freshly cooked beans. Yet, were only able to make a few kinds of beans taste good, no matter how hard we tried. Clearly, we have no figured out the art of the bean.

Jasna learned about Rancho Gordo and their fresh beans. Apparently the beans we were buying in the stores were prehistoric, up to 10 years old. Imagine your cell phone was of that age - today that would have been the original iPhone. Freshness of the beans, the sheer variety, and improved cooking instructions elevated our bean to a new level.

There are two main steps I learned: The first one is to boil beans without salt until they are soft. Apparently salt toughens them up. The second one is to boil them vigorously for 15 minutes, and then simmer ever so slowly until the beans are done. No idea why this is needed, but the result is really good.

Today we made a super simple supper: millet, acoyote beans, and tahini sauce. We looked at each other and decided that steak has gotten some stiff competition. The beans were cooked in freshly made dashi with off-the-chart umami level, millet added a nice texture complement, and tahini sauce kicked it all up a notch or three.

Tahini sauce:

• Mix a coup of yogurt, 3-5 finely chopped garlic cloves, a pinch of salt, juice of one lemon, a few TBS extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp of ground cumin, and 2 TBS tahini.
• That was it. What you don't use, refrigerate. It makes a great salad dressing!

Millet:

• Mix 1/2 cup millet and 1 cup of water, leave in a fridge overnight, or for a couple of days if you change your plans :)
• Put millet in a pot along with the soaking water.
• Add 1/2 TBS miso paste.
• Bring to simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, until millet absorbs the water. 
• I like millet grains to retain its shape. If you want it mushier, use more water.

Beans:

• Soak 2/3 cups of beans in filtered water overnight. Use enough water as beans will double in size.
• Soaking is not strictly needed, but will cut down on cooking time, I highly recommend it.
• Tough-skin beans like ayocote negro that we used can be forgotten in a fridge, soaking for a few days. 
• Strain the beans and wash them. This is supposed to reduce the gas action after eating the beans, though some say it doesn't help. I do it. More importantly, when you eat beans regularly, your digestive track adjust and the gas goes away.
• Put beans in a pot and cover them with fresh liquid. You can use water or dashi if you have it - note that no salt was added to dashi. Add a few TBS of extra virgin olive oil, some chopped onion and carrots, and 5 or so peeled whole garlic cloves. You can also discard the soaking liquid - some claim that reduced flatulence. My experience has been that eating beans and fiber reduces gas.
• Cover, bring to a hard boil, and boil hard for 15 minutes.
• Bring to slow simmer, and simmer for about 20 minutes until the beans soften. Check here and there if you are short on liquid - add more water or dashi in that case.
• When the beans are soft, add salt - to taste. If you are using dashi, you'll barely need a pinch.
• Simmer slowly for another 15 minutes to let beans absorbe some salt. You will end up with beans in some bean liquid that will be super tasty.

To serve, plate some millet first. On top of that, spoon beans and the cooking liquid. Top with a dollop of tahini sauce. Ascend in food heaven.

Dashi made in fridge

Japanese swear by dashi, their base soup stock made from kelp and bonito flakes. When one eats a soup in Japan, it is clear why: umami is off the chart. So I always wanted to learn how to create that magic. I tried recipes from the web, and the result was OK, but not the real thing.

Until I finally had an obvious idea. I was in Tokyo, and I realized that I could ask locals how they made dashi! So brilliant and original, I could hardly believe myself. I even picked a really smart person, my colleague Ryoichi who has invented tons of things, so making dashi should be child play to him. He shocked me when he explained that the easiest and most reliable way to make dashi was to soak kelp in water in a fridge in two days, heat it up, and then pour it over bonito flakes that one packs into a coffee filter.

I politely promised to try this method and stayed quiet about my doubts. How wrong I was - the result is liquid umami that one can use for all sorts of things, usually even without adding any salt.

Procedure:

• Obtain kombu (dried kelp), and bonito flakes in a Japanese store.
• Take a plastic container. I use 1500ml. Add two small pieces of rinsed kombu, and fill with filtered water.
• Leave in a fridge for two days, or more, I have done up to 5 days. The kelp will expand dramatically and the water will draw goodness out of kelp.
• If you want a vegtarian dashi, you are done - use it in a few days. If you want to add bonito flakes, there is a little bit more to do:
• Pour the kelp water into a sauce pan, it will look like this.

• Start heating the water until it almost boils. If it boils the world does not end.
• Outfit a pour-over coffee dripper with a wet filter, and pack it with bonito flakes.

• Set the dripper over a jar that can hold all of the kelp water. Slowly pour the hot kelp water over bonito flakes, just like when making a pour-over coffee.

• When you are done, you have perfect dashi. 
• It keeps in the fridge for a few days.
• I am learning to start a new batch immediately when I made the previous one.

You can drink dashi, use it to make soup or sauces. I even use it to boil beans!