I am wanting to cook relatively small portions of dry beans but am not sure what kind of equipment to buy. My main concern is energy efficiency: I expect to cook a lot of individual portions over the coming years and know from experience that if I cook them conventionally, that this means hours and hours of cooking.
What would be the most energy efficient way to cook these beans? If it matters, let's assume batches of 400g kidney beans, and that they have been soaked overnight.
I have a gas stove and the options seem to be:
- Boil them in a regular stainless steel pot
- Using a cast iron pot (better heat retention?)
- Slow cooker
- Pressure cooker (on the stove)
- Electric pressure cooker
Not sure if there are other common options (I don't have access to niche products). I found blogs such as these on the topic, but these seem to be personal blogs with data from single experiments, not sure how thorough or reliable this is.