1 bag of chickpeas.....

And a few lunches to make with them

Before I get started on the substance of today’s post, I just wanted to say hello and welcome to all the new subscribers to Catherine is Under Pressure. If you have recently joined and have not been using your pressure cooker for long, I strongly recommend you read the earliest, non recipe posts for detailed information on how to get the best out of them and to avoid some of the mistakes first time users (and actually some experienced users too!) frequently make. Pressure cooking is very easy once you get the hang of it, but there are one or two things worth knowing which are a bit counter intuitive. I would especially point you at:

And the posts which come after it.

And if you haven’t yet bought a pressure cooker and are thinking about it, this is the post for you:

Now onto the post proper…..

One of the more successful things I have done with my Instagram is regularly post what I am putting in the children’s thermos flasks for their lunch. It gets more engagement than anything else I do and I am frequently being asked for more ideas. So I expect this will be the first of an ongoing series.

If you don’t have to take a packed lunch to work/school/wherever, you can of course still use these recipes. The only difference between these and my regular recipes is that I give more options – the whole point of them is that you aren’t buying food specifically for the lunches, so they are designed to be flexible – and that they are all written for 2 portions, not 4. This is because most of the time I am filling 2 thermoses, but also because I know quite a few people are just feeding themselves at lunchtime and while I personally think it is fine to eat the same thing 2 days in a row, or twice in a week (with another lunch in between and with tweaks), I am not sure I would want to eat the same thing 4 days in a row.  

Before I get onto the recipes, I thought one or two general points might be in order. This is how it works for me in the context of my family and the time I have, so use/adapt/discard as you like.

Because of recipe development and testing, I always have odds and ends around and my fridge and freezer are always bulging at the seams. I appreciate that this is a good position to be in, so I am not complaining, I am just explaining that it does impact on how I approach the lunches and also how I batch cook. Foodstuffs which take very little time to cook – eg., pasta, white rice, some other grains - are things I will rarely batch cook because I don’t have limitless space to store them - it is much easier to leave them dry and cook as I need them. I will reserve what space I do have for those things which do take longer and sometimes require a bit of forward planning. So, those longer to cook beans and pulses, stocks and sauces. These I will store in a variety of portion sizes.

Batch cooked foods that are always useful as they can be added to any quick cook carb for a fast one pot meal, or can be combined with a variety of other ingredients include:

Any type of bean or pulse

Any wholegrain rice/barley/spelt/freekeh etc – these take longer to cook and are forgiving if you want to recook as a one pot

Ragu and tomato sauce

Any leftover curries/stews/casseroles (favourite here is keema peas)

Cooked meats (boiled ham, leftover chicken, roast meats) and their gravies

Portions of building blocks such as types of sofrito or a ginger/garlic/onion combo

Then I will mix and match with additional frozen foods such as:

Vegetables – always peas, broad beans, whole leaf and chopped spinach, sweetcorn

Herbs – finely chopped coriander and parsley stems, curry leaves

Parmesan/other cheese rinds

As well as additional chilled goods (besides herbs and fresh vegetables):

Cheese, cream cheese, yogurt, bacon, chorizo, nduja, sausage, cooked meats

Tomato puree

Citrus fruits (if unwaxed I do try to keep in the fridge, they last better)

Pastes – miso, chipotle, anchovy, harissa, gochugang etc

And these will be frequently bulked out with non perishables:

Dried, tinned, jarred. Usually carbs which form the basis of most of the meals because a) cheaper and b) teenagers need them.

The following recipes are based around a bag of chickpeas, so first of all here is a quick refresher about cooking dried beans and pulses:

First, why dried, not tinned or jarred?

I will always out of preference choose dry. Even with factoring in the fuel cost – which is minimal when using the pressure cooker, especially if you use my cheapest method, see below – it will be cheaper. If your fuel comes from renewables it will definitely be greener as the packaging will be minimal - no tin/glass and minimal or no plastic. The texture is frequently better – even some of the better quality jarred beans are not consistent in quality. In fact, the other day I compared a popular jarred brand with a cheaper tinned version and the cheaper tinned version won hands down – the jarred ones were mushy and the starch had settled into a grey sludgy jelly around them. Very unappetising. Closely linked with this is seasoning – salt is very important to the texture of beans and some seem to be cooked with none at all. This results in a mealier texture and tougher skins as well as a blander flavour.

The downside is sometimes dried beans and pulses can be unpredictable in that if they are old they show little signs of deterioration until you try to cook them and they will take longer. And worse, will very occasionally disintegrate inside while staying too firm on the outside. But this happens rarely enough that it shouldn’t discourage you, especially as they will always cook eventually. And you can minimise this by making sure you don’t keep them for too long - aim for a relatively fast turnover, regardless of the BBE date.

Cooking Chickpeas

I think it is best to cook beans/non disintegrating pulses (puy lentils etc) in 500g batches. I do this from a recipe development point of view because most are sold in multiples of 500g, but even if I didn’t, it makes sense to me because it means you don’t have as many half filled bags of dried goods lying around.

The recipes below rely on a single 500g bag of chickpeas – one bag is enough to cook all of them with a little left over. There are several ways you can cook them. With or without soaking (slow or quick soaked) and then cooked at high pressure for a longer time with minimal natural release or for a very short time then using the pressure cooker as a fuel-less slow cooker/haybox. My preferred method, for texture and for cost is to soak overnight in salted (1 tsp) water, stirring every time you walk past them. Then I change the water, add another tsp salt and a tablespoon of water and any aromatics which will add flavour but not impede how versatile I want the chickpeas to be. Garlic, whole cloves, is a safe bet, so is pepper, thyme, bay. The upside of this is that you have a lightly flavoured broth in the cooking liquor which you can use as a base for soup.

Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Then either cook for 13 minutes at high pressure and leave to drop naturally for 10 minutes. Or cook for 2 minutes at high pressure, remove from the heat and leave to stand until the cooker has cooled down, but at least 45 minutes.

The volume of chickpeas you are left with depends on how much liquid they soak up. The batch I made to develop these recipes gave me 1350g. This is the equivalent of between 5-6 tins. So if you compare like with like (eg., a supermarket own brand tinned and dried), you are saving a fair amount in terms of money and packaging.

The Recipes

All of these recipes make enough to fill 2 x 470ml thermos food flasks

Chickpeas with Aubergine and Halloumi

I used aubergine in this recipe because I had half a one left over, but could easily have used a small courgette instead, or a red pepper or 200g cauliflower florets. The secret to these meals for me is that apart from the base ingredient, in this case the chickpeas, I never buy anything especially for them, just rummage around in the fridge to see what I have.

Using halloumi puts the price of this up considerably, by around 75p a portion and isn’t strictly necessary. You can leave it out or replace with more vegetables. Incidentally, I used halloumi quite a lot in thermoses - it softens to a lovely squishiness but keeps its integrity and it has a good flavour which is intensely savoury but not too overpowering. Some cheeses are just too strong for a thermos.

For anyone extra hungry (as my growing 14 yr old always is), pita or similar on the side is a good addition.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

½ aubergine OR 1 small courgette etc, diced

1 small or ½ large red or white onion, diced

1 stick celery, diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Pinches of cinnamon, allspice, turmeric, chilli

½ tsp dried mint or oregano

500g cooked chickpeas

1 tbsp tomato puree

½ block halloumi, diced

A handful of spinach leaves or similar

A squeeze of lemon juice

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. When it is hot, add the aubergine and sear briefly on the cut sides until lightly brown. Add the onion and celery and cook for another couple of minutes, then stir in the garlic, spices, dried herbs and chickpeas.

Add 100ml water, then stir in the tomato puree, making sure the base of the cooker is properly deglazed. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle the halloumi and spinach leaves over the top. Bring up to high pressure, then remove from the heat and leave for a minute before releasing the remaining pressure. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and any fresh herbs you may have, then stir. Spoon into heated thermoses.

Chickpeas with Pasta

This one can also be vegan/vegetarian, but I usually add a bit of well flavoured meat to it. It is amazing how little you need to push the flavour through. Again, you can add other vegetables – diced carrot or celery or a couple of cubes of my sofrito recipe (see Modern Pressure Cooking for details), chard works in place of any kind of kale, you could add a diced or grated courgette, red pepper. Anything that can cope with 5 minutes of pressure cooking.

If you want to add parmesan, I strongly recommend grating some into a little pot and adding as you eat. Parmesan is not good left in a thermos for a few hours.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely diced

2 rashers smoked bacon OR 50g chorizo  OR 1 tbsp nduja

2 large kale leaves, shredded OR 2 cubes frozen spinach

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

250g cooked chickpeas

1 tbsp tomato puree

25g red lentils

150g short pasta

To serve (all optional):

Lemon juice

Chilli flakes

1 tbsp cream cheese

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. Add the onion and the bacon or equivalent and saute until browned with any fat rendering out. If you are using nduja, don’t add at this stage, but with tomato puree. Stir in the garlic, chickpeas, tomato puree and red lentils. Add a splash of water to make sure the base is deglazed, then stir in the pasta, making sure it sits as evenly as possible in the cooker. Pour in just enough water to cover, then season with salt and pepper.

Bring up to high pressure and reduce the heat so it is just high enough to maintain the pressure. Cook for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and carefully fast release the pressure – do this in stages because there is always a danger of starchy liquid coming out of the vents.

Stir and taste for seasoning. Add a sprinkling of chilli flakes and a squeeze of lemon juice if you like. One of my children likes some cream cheese stirred in too.

A Very Quick Chickpea Curry

As the cooking is minimal here, you can add any vegetables which also take that very short cooking time – cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, cabbage – as well as those which are good cooked fast or slow – the kales, chard etc.

If you happen to have any of the onion/ginger/garlic paste made up from Modern Pressure Cooking, you can use a couple of cubes of this as a substitute, just drop them in on top from frozen. You could also add a few curry leaves if you have them.

This isn’t a particularly wet curry – none of these meals are very wet because children have a very limited time to eat at lunchtime and the wetter it is, the hotter it tends to be to eat. You can if you like make it saucier with more coconut milk.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp coconut oil or olive oil (or your oil of preference)

1 onion, finely chopped

1 red pepper, diced

5g piece ginger, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp finely chopped coriander stems

2 tsp curry powder – your favourite

500g cooked chickpeas

200ml coconut milk

1 tbsp tamarind puree (optional, I like the sour)

4 squares frozen spinach (optional)

To serve (all optional):

Coriander leaves

A squeeze of lime juice

A little green chilli, finely chopped

Yogurt

Flat breads

Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. Add the onion, pepper and ginger and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic, coriander stems and curry powder and stir for another minute. Add the chickpeas and coconut milk, along with the tamarind if using. Stir to make sure the base is properly deglazed and season with salt and pepper. Drop the spinach on top.

Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Immediately remove from the heat, leave for 2 minutes, then release any remaining pressure. Stir to disperse the spinach and taste for seasoning. Add fresh coriander and a squeeze of lime if you like. Any chilli is best put in a little pot on the side, so is any yogurt.

With the remaining 100g (which you may or may not have, depending on how your chickpeas have cooked) you could:

Add to a salad or soup.

Blitz to make a single portion of hummus

Roughly squish, dress with a garlicky yogurt tahini sauce and put in a pita with crunchy salad vegetables and herbs

Fry in oil and spices for a crisp and moreish bar type snack

Make another thermos meal with a grain of choice - you can make a simple pilaf for two with similar spicing to the curry above, or any kind of paste, and 50g uncooked basmati, 75ml liquid per person. 3 mins HP, natural release.

And finally….

I have been away and out a lot the past week, so not so much cooking in the house at all, let alone pressure cooking. But I have made:

A pot roast chicken

A freekah pilaf

A one pot tortellini with fresh tomatoes

A pot of black beans which was the basis of x3 meals, including tacos, soup, and a thermos meal with rice and sweetcorn

Lots of purple sprouting broccoli

Roast carrots and parsnips

Roast cabbage

Dal

Keema peas

Lamb ribs

A few more thermoses….

Hmm, a bit more than I thought!