Prepare the richest chickpeas with vegetables in your pot to pressure

If you like chickpeas and you don’t have enough time to cook them, with a pressure cooker you can easily and quickly prepare delicious dishes with this nutritious food. Here we show you some important aspects about legumes, their contribution to our body and a recipe that will delight the whole family.

Legumes are all those seeds that are generated inside the pods of some plants called legumes, this being their edible part; so to have access to them, we must remove them from their pods for our consumption. These legumes can be found dried or canned and cooked and ready to use in any recipe.

Among the most used legumes in most kitchens are lentils, chickpeas, fabas and beans, the latter being also known as string beans, kidney beans or beans. These foods fill any gastronomy with richness and are used both in traditional recipes as well as in various avant-garde proposals.

Legumes, an essential food in our daily diet

Legumes are one of the most consumed foods in the world. However, many times due to lack of time and due to its elaborate preparation, it is a dish that we leave aside. However, if we have the best pressure cooker in our kitchen, we can prepare any vegetable without any problem. With this utensil we can reduce cooking times and thus quickly prepare exquisite recipes with our favorite legumes. In this way, we can enjoy dishes rich in nutrients and without having to spend hours cooking.

Likewise, it is important to keep in mind the nutritional contributions that legumes provide to our body, so that they are not lacking in our daily diet. In this sense, we have that these foods contain a large amount of important minerals for our health, such as iron, magnesium, potassium and calcium. Likewise, they provide group B vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins; which helps the optimal functioning of the nervous system and favors the supply of energy. They are also seeds rich in fiber, so they reduce cholesterol and benefit the functioning of the intestine.

What you didn’t know about pre-soaking legumes

Although many of us tend to think that soaking legumes, especially lentils, beans or chickpeas, is to reduce cooking times, to soften them and to promote digestion; The truth is that, according to nutrition experts, the main reason for soaking these foods is because they contain high levels of antinutrients.

Antinutrients are elements that affect the absorption or bioavailability of vitamins present in food. For this reason, specialists recommend soaking for 12 to 24 hours, when it comes to chickpeas, kidney beans or kidney beans, and then removing the water, avoiding using it for cooking; since the antinutrients remain there dissolved.

Legumes contain protease inhibitors, cyanogenic glycosides, hemagglutinins, and flatulence factors; all of them are antinutrients that must be eliminated and the best way to achieve this is by soaking the seeds for several hours. However, when it comes to canned vegetables, it is not necessary to soak them beforehand, since in these cases they are already cooked.

The recipes

Here are some recipes for you to easily cook your legumes in a pressure cooker, where in addition to obtaining the most exquisite results, you can make them without wasting time.

Chickpeas and vegetables recipe

Chickpeas are versatile legumes and like most of these seeds, they fit perfectly into different recipes. This particular preparation is especially indicated for vegans, diets and when it comes to balanced and healthy dishes, since chickpeas with vegetables provide the necessary energy that our body requires to face the day.

In this case, we will use canned chickpeas, since preparation is much faster. However, if you are one of the people who prefers to cook your dried legumes, you should leave them to soak the night before.

Ingredients

1 can of cooked chickpeas

½ onion

½ green bell pepper

½ carrot

1 piece of leek

1 piece of zucchini

1 pinch of salt to taste

1 medium or large potato

1 pinch of black pepper

1 pinch of ground ginger

1 pinch of cumin

vegetable broth (as needed)

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon of turmeric

Preparation

Proceed to chop all the vegetables to make the sauce, taking care not to make too large or too small pieces. Start by frying the leek and onion in two tablespoons of olive oil in the pressure cooker. Then, when the onion turns transparent, add the carrot and pepper and cook over medium heat; when these vegetables start to get soft, you add the zucchini and salt.

Continue cooking for a few minutes and then pour in the vegetable broth, the idea is to cover all the ingredients. At this point, you can leave the vegetables whole or if you prefer, you can shred them; for which you must remove all the sofrito from the pot and grind, and then reintroduce it.

Add the peeled and diced potato and add the chickpeas at the same time, while continuing to cook over medium heat. You can add the spices, bay leaf, and more vegetable broth to cover the chickpeas. At this point, you’ll need to cover the pressure cooker, tightening your lid tight, and then cook for 15 minutes (depending on the pot). In the event that the chickpeas used are dry, it is important to cook them previously with the pot covered for about 20 minutes and then add the potato.

Once this time has elapsed, turn off the heat and remove the pot. You will have to wait for the valve to eliminate all the steam inside and for the temperature to drop, and then proceed to carefully remove the lid. This dish can be accompanied with a salad.