Pulses: why buy dry?

Even with spiralling energy prices, cooking pulses from dried can save you money.

We cooked dried whole yellow peas in a pressure cooker to make a delicious hummus style dip, measuring the peas before and after cooking, and calculating the energy used to cook them.

We estimate that it took less than 30p worth of electricity (at June 2022 prices) to cook a £1.99 half kilo of peas. We soaked the peas overnight before cooking in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes at pressure on an induction hob. The pressure cooker was then left to cool for 20 minutes before opening - the peas will have cotinued to cook during that rest and cooling period.

We ended up with just over 1.3kg drained cooked peas from the 500g dried - enough to make plenty of hummus* or keep some in the fridge or freezer for quick use later.

The total cost of the cooked peas works out at just 42p per 240g, which is equivalent to the drained weight of a tin of pulses. In most shops a tin of chickpeas are around 60 or 70p (very cheap and discounted chipeas are out there, but not reliably) - and premium or organic are well over £1. With the other ingredients and blending, our hummus cost well under 60p per 200g, less than half the price of typical supermarket hummus and much tastier to boot.

There are other advantages of cooking from dry, not least you can choose to cook to your prefered texture. When canning, pulses are cooked until they reach a temperature sufficient to kill any botulinum or other pathogens that might be present for a set period of time, rather than to achieve a particular eating quality. You can also choose how you season during cooking seasoning. We love to cook dried pulses with aromatics like bay, garlic, onion, lemon, rosemary, chili, peppercorns, epazote or kelp to give a depth of flavour and a quality that you could never achieve with a can of ready cooked beans.

*With the cooking liquid and other ingredients our 500g dried peas made close to 2kg of hummus. This may seem a lot, but hummus is more than just a dip! We make hummus of all kinds to use as a pasta sauce, added to roast potatoes (mix in once the potatoes are roasted and return to the oven for 10 minutes to heat through), as an alternative to white sauce in lasagne or moussaka, to thicken soups, cooked in a pie and more! The hummus will keep in the fridge for a few days and freezes well.

What do you think - dried or canned?

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