13-Bean Soup

As with so many things in the kitchen, I find myself interpolating between recipes in order to make better use of the hardware I have. This is a good example of taking one thing from column A and another from column B and merging the two, in this case, the 13-bean soup recipes from Pressure Cooker Perfection (an America's Test Kitchen title) and the recipe from the Bob's Red Mill 13-bean soup label.

• 2 cups 13-bean soup mix. You can buy this in the Bob's package, or Sprouts actually sells a 10-bean bulk mix that's very similar.
• 2 quarts of chicken stock.
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 tsp. minced fresh thyme, or 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
  
• 1 pint tomato sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, pressed. Any time a recipe calls for minced garlic, I always press it as it's faster and easier, plus more flavorful (IMO).
• 1 lb. sweet Italian sausage. I use chicken sausage as it's lower fat.
• Enough olive/vegetable oil to cover a frying pan and the base of the pressure cooker (4 tbsp.?)
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 ounces Swiss chard
• Salt and pepper

Measure out two cups of the soup mix, and then pick through for bad beans, stones, and the like. At this point, you may wish to soak overnight, but the received wisdom is that overnight soaking is not necessary. That's especially true with pressure cookers.

Edit 2016-10-29: Use this quick pre-soak method:

• 8 cups water
• 2 tsps. salt
• oil

Rinse the bean mix in a colander and add to the empty pressure cooker. Add the water, salt, and oil; run for two minutes, and do a quick release, periodically stopping the release if foam comes out.

Coat a skillet and your pressure cooker with olive oil, and set both to high heat until the oil smokes a bit. Add the sausage in the skillet, and the chopped carrot and onion in the pressure cooker. Cook the sausage until brown on all sides (about 2 minutes), then set aside. Cook the carrots and onions until soft, about five minutes. Add the garlic and thyme to the pressure cooker, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth, tomato sauce, bay leaves, and sausage to the pressure cooker, adding any residual juices from the sausage.

Lock the pressure cooker lid and set on high for 70 minutes (1:10). Quick release pressure. Extract the bay leaves and discard. Remove the sausages and cut in 1/2" thick slices, and return to the soup. Add the chard, and cook an additional five minutes, until the chard is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For non-pressure cookers:

For cooking at atmospheric, the cooking time is 2:30 (two and a half hours).