Quick Cuban Rancho Gordo Beans Recipe

[fzxdoc]

​ I modified this Panning the Globe recipe for Quick Cuban beans by cooking Rancho Gordo Ayocote Negro beans the day before in the Instant Pot, storing them overnight in their broth. The next day I cooked up the savory bean stew in the Instant Pot using the Saute function and then pressure cooking the whole concoction for 30 minutes more. The beans are pretty large. They turned out just right even with a double dip in the pressure cooker.

Here is the recipe with my modifications noted. The photo is from the original recipe's website.

​



Quick Cuban Black Beans

★★★★★
Beans, Lentils, Garbanzos etc., Cuban
Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 20 mins Servings: Yield: 6 Source: Panningtheglobe.com

DESCRIPTION

This was delicious. Substituted chopped red Anaheims (5 to 6 small ones) for the red bell pepper. That added just the right amount of heat. I cooked the dried Ayocote Negro beans in about 6 cups water (enough to cover by an inch in the Instant Pot) the day before using the Instant Pot 80 min High NPR.
The next day I made the stew including the cooked beans and their broth in the Instant Pot set to 30 min High NPR.

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces slab bacon cut into 1-inch by ½-inch lardons

4 to 6 red (hotter than green) Anaheim peppers, chopped
or
1 large red bell pepper, chopped

1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
6 large cloves of garlic, minced
1½ teaspoons ground cumin

4 15-ounce cans of black beans with their liquid
or
1 lb dried black beans ( Rancho Gordo's large Ayocote Negro beans 80 min High NPR undrained. This makes 6 cups)

1 tablespoon cider or white vinegar
2 bay leaves
1½ teaspoons Kosher salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
½ cup - 1 cup of water or broth (chicken or vegetable), if needed

OPTIONAL GARNISHES:
Lime Wedges
Chopped cilantro
Sour cream
Cotija Cheese, grated
Sliced Avocado


DIRECTIONS

Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium-high heat.
Add bacon and sauté, stirring often, until it starts to brown, about 3 minutes.
Add chopped pepper and onion. Cook, stirring, for one minute.
Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes longer to soften the vegetables.
Add cumin and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds to toast the cumin.
Add 1 can of beans with their liquid or 1 cup of the cooked beans to the pot. Use a potato masher or the back of a fork to gently mash the beans.
Add the remainder of the beans with their liquid, vinegar, bay leaves, 1½ teaspoons salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Adjust taste and texture to your liking by adding additional water or broth and salt and pepper.
Serve as a side dish with lime wedges and chopped cilantro or as a main dish scooped over steaming brown or white rice and topped with garnishes of chopped cilantro, lime wedges, grated cheese and/or sour cream.

Note: usually I add vinegar at the end of a stew recipe for brightness, but decided to follow the recipe and add it as directed. It turned out fine with plenty of zip from the vinegar.

Kathryn​

[MBMorgan]

That looks excellent, Kathryn ... thanks for sharing!

[Mr. Bones]

Thanks, always up fer some beans, Sister!

[58limited]

Why couldn't you have posted this a few hours earlier? The Rajma Beans are turning out well but this looks good too.

[fzxdoc]

There are always more Rancho Gordo beans on the shelf....



Kathryn

[Bbqmikeg]

Those lardons are hidden prizes in the beans!

[Caffeine88]

I was looking for a more satisfactory method of doing Rancho Gordo black beans in the pressure cooker after a so-so run this weekend. Thanks, Kathryn - you read my mind! Definitely going to give this one a try.

Does "Rancho Gordo's large Ayocote Negro beans 80 min High NPR undrained." mean that you cooked them in the InstantPot, but No Pressure? We have a Fagor, which is basically the same as InstantPot but that setting isn't familiar to me.

[Jim White]

I'm sure Kathryn will be along to clarify for sure, but I think the "NPR" is for natural pressure release. With the Instant Pot, you have the option of a quick release of pressure or just letting the pressure go down naturally as the cooker cools off.

[Caffeine88]

Thanks Jim White I just didn't recognize the acronym. That being the case - 80 minutes at high? I cooked their smaller black beans for 16 + 5 + 5+ 6 + 4 = 36 minutes with Unnatural (?) pressure release (yeah, I don't have any idea what I'm doing). I found one recommendation for 10-12 minutes for soaked beans, and figured we'd be in good shape at 16-20. It took wayyy longer, but still nowhere near 80 minutes. I would have expected them to get blasted into mushy oblivion??

[Caffeine88]

We also have the Ayocote Negro beans, but haven't tried yet.
I really don't want to obliterate them, and it's pretty aggravating to keep restarting the PK to get beans cooked to just past al dente.

[fzxdoc]

Caffeine88 , I cook beans in the Instant Pot about once a week. I seldom soak them anymore. My go-to settings for average-sized unsoaked beans are 65 minutes on High pressure, allowing for Natural Pressure Release, which takes an additional 40 minutes or so, going from IP's High pressure to a pressure that allows for easy lid release without having to vent the pot.

Since the Instant Pot does not achieve the pressure that your stovetop Fagor most likely does, your cook times will be much less. High Pressure on the Instant Pot Duo 60 that I use is 10.2-11.6 psi. Your Fagor most likely achieves 15 psi. So your times will be shorter to reach "Creamy Bean Nirvana" than mine.

As a general rule of thumb, electric pressure cookers' high-pressure setting reaches a maximum of 12 to 12.5 psi. This is a lower psi than stovetop pressure cookers, which reach about 15 psi. Many people who have Instant Pots add about 20% to the cook times used for stovetop pressure cookers to achieve comparable results.

For the Instant Pot Duo-60
High Pressure
(10.2 - 11.6 psi)
Low Pressure
(5.8 - 7.2 psi)

One other factor that will make your cook times different from mine is the altitude at which I cook: 3700 ft. The rule of thumb for that is to add 5% to the cook time for every 1000 ft above an altitude of 2000ft.

So the combination of my IP cooking at a lower pressure than yours and the altitude at which I cook is why my cook times are longer than yours to achieve similar results.

I've been cooking Rancho Gordo beans exclusively for a few years now. At first I started out somewhere around 30 minutes on High pressure with NPR. Since I can't stand crunchy beans at the end of a pressure cook and, like you, rarely have the patience to re-pressurize for a second go-round, I started adding time with several bean cooks.

At this point, this is my rule of thumb based on the size of the bean for the IP Duo-60 at 3700 ft altitude. The beans are not soaked:

Small beans (like flageolet and soft beans like Christmas Lima) High pressure 55 minutes with NPR (Natural pressure release)
Medium beans (like Hidasta red beans and Midnight blacks, Marcella cannellini beans) High pressure 65 minutes with NPR
Large beans (like Cassoulet or tougher ones like Good Mother Stallard) High pressure 75 minutes with NPR
Extra large beans (like Royal Coronas) High pressure 90 minutes with NPR

Having cooked unsoaked Ayocote Negro beans before, I knew that they needed a bit more time than the large bean rule of thumb. That's why I chose 80 minutes High pressure with NPR for this recipe.

I usually add water to the Instant Pot to cover the beans by one inch. This is often around 6 to 8 cups to a max of 9 cups, depending on how much broth I'm going for.

My disclaimer: these are the times that work for me. I don't mind a few blown beans if 99%+of the beans are creamy. If I pre-soak the beans, there are fewer blown ones. I've seen plenty of Instant Pot recipes on the internet that say that unsoaked beans can be cooked to tenderness in 20-30 minutes, but this has never been my experience with my IP. Those recipes always make me wonder what I'm doing wrong.

That said, the proof is in the cooked bean's tenderness, which sometimes takes a few cooks to lock into solid cook times.

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

Caffeine88 , check your manual, if you're curious about your Fagor electric pressure cooker's psi.

A quick Google search showed that Fagor MultiCooker and America Lux models reach 9psi on their High settings.

Fagor does sell stovetop models, which I mistakenly thought you have, that get up to 15psi.

Kathryn

[ecowper]

Hi there Kathryn, bringing this back to life .... Haven now acquired Instant Pot and intend to figure out beans in the IP. This seems like a good starting point. However, since I'm at about 750 feet elevation, I assume I must subtract 10-15 minutes from my total high pressure cooking time? What category do you think garbanzos fall into (RG garbanzos). I plan to cook up a batch of them so that my wife can easily add them to salads for her work lunch. Something I did stovetop in the past.

[ecowper]

fzxdoc and an additional few questions. Do you put anything in besides water if you just want cooked beans to use for other things? Or do you add salt and aromatics? If you've done garbanzos particularly, and have tips there, I'd much appreciate it! Eric

[fzxdoc]

Hi Eric,
ecowper when I want cooked beans for use in other recipes where they will be cooked even longer, I lessen the times listed in Post #7 by 15 minutes or so. For example, just yesterday IP'd some pintos for future use in a cowboy beans recipe where they were to cook at least 30 minutes, so I IP'd the pintos on High for 35 minutes with NPR (natural pressure release). Normally I would have used 45 to 55 minutes. At 35 minutes, they were firm when they came out of the IP and softened somewhat (to what I call "toothy") in the additional 30 minutes of cooking in the cowboy beans recipe, but they were no where near as creamy as when I IP them for a longer amount of time.

I recommend you grab some RG beans, IP them on High for 35 minutes or so (at your altitude) with NPR and see how you like them. That's what I did initially and over the years lengthened the cook times to get the creamy bean consistency that our family likes.

When I use beans in other recipes like soups, etc, most of the time I cook them completely in the IP and add them at the end of the recipe, cooking long enough after that to heat the beans through.

The only aromatics I use when cooking RG beans for just plain eating (say with a little vinaigrette or all by themselves) is a generous teaspoon each of granulated garlic and granulated onion. (I rarely measure--just shake the spice jar over the pot until it looks OK). I do the same for future use in other recipes, since a little extra onion/garlic flavor never hurts.

I always use at least 6 cups of water or broth per pound of beans. This fills the IP to just below the 2.5 liter mark on the side of the inner pot. I salt the beans to taste after the pressure is released.

For RG garbanzos: 1 lb, unsoaked, rinsed, added to the pot with 6 cups of water (or water to the 2.5 liter mark, or about 2 inches above the garbanzos), and IP them on High for 55 minutes with NPR. They come out really nicely for use in hummus, chickpea salad, etc. One pound of dried chickpeas makes 5-6 cups cooked depending on their age.

You're going to love playing with that Instant Pot. It's so handy! Most of all, you'll love the sauté feature. It allows you to make so many one-pot meals.

For convenience, I bought an extra inner pot (insert) for my 6 quart Duo IP. For the cowboy beans I made yesterday, I cooked the pintos while I did the mis en place for the rest of the cowboy bean recipe. When the pintos were done, I lifted them out in their pot, put the second inner pot in place, sautéed the meats, aromatics, spices, etc. then added the beans back in to finish cooking. Easy peasy.

Kathryn

[Andrrr]

I don’t know when I’ll ever need this info or find myself in the position to try this, but you are a fountain of knowledge and I thoroughly enjoy reading your explanations on things even if it’s just for the sake of learning. Thanks so much for sharing.

[fzxdoc]

Thank you, Andrrr , for the nice compliment. It is a great way to start my day.

ecowper , your IP sounds way more fancy than mine. Sounds like you have the garbanzos well in hand. Now on to beans!

Kathryn

[ecowper]

fzxdoc Kathryn thanks so much for this write up and your response. I would not have got this first try without it. All the directions I found elsewhere told me to pre-soak by pressure cooking for 1 minute, then releasing, then cooking for 15-20 minutes (varied from one site to another). That seemed like too much PITA so I came and searched here, knowing you had written this stuff up somewhere.

The IP is only fancier in the outer decorations. I am a Star Wars geek, so this stuff works for me.