New Instant Pot - I want to make split peas soup tonight
My Instant Pot arrived this week. I usually use a stovetop pressure cooker, but I keep getting interrupted, so I thought it would be safe to have something that turned off automatically. I'll do the test cook this morning, but I have dreams of having split peas soup for dinner tonight. I have the smoked (cured, smoked and cooked to 140F prior to freezing) pork hock, a kilo of peas, and some veggies that need using up. Everything I need to make split peas soup. (the family call it peas with an 's' because they come from a region which still used a lot of middle English idioms - I keep the tradition)
The split peas soup my mother used to make takes three days on the stove or all day with the stovetop pressure cooker. I'm wondering if I can make it go faster with this instant pot?
- Is it possible to make the broth at the same time as cooking the peas? When I look online, this seems to be what people are doing. But the key to the family recipe is to have a very strong broth so I'm suspicious of this.
- How much water for 1 kilo of split peas? What setting?
I understand this cooks at a lower psi than my stovetop and takes longer to 'natural release' so my timing is going to be very different. Not that I can find where I wrote down my regular timing, so I basically need a gernal outline that I can fill in my regular ingredients.
4 Comments
Does 2 cups peas per 6 cups broth seem right to you ?
It took a few test cooks (pressure cooking water) to get the settings right. The vent valve is really finicky and even though it says it's on sealing, sometimes the steam comes out of there non-stop. I have to get it just in the perfect position.
Other than that, very quick and easy to pressure cook water.
I choose to do the broth separately since having a strong broth is essential to this recipe. I selecting the setting for broth and put it on for 45 min and filled the water to the half-full line. I don't know if that will be long enough, but I'm using natural (slowest) release so maybe? It's about what I would do on the stovetop pressure cooker.
It's going to be interesting.