*In the last digest Jan E. wrote: I've heard that kombu is a good addition
when cooking dried beans, so I
picked some up at the HFS, and now I have absolutely no idea what to do
with it! I have big dried strips of the stuff, and now I could use some
guidance on how much to use, say, in a crockpot full of beans, do I
rinse that powdery white stuff off the surface, does it get soaked
before adding it to the pot or just thrown in dry, and if it's soaked,
do you add the soaking water too.... I'd appreciate advice from an
experienced person.
I soak my beans first, drain the water off and then add the dried kombu to
the final cooking water. I usually cook the beans in a pressure cooker and use
about 2-3 Inches of kombu for 2-3 cups of beans and a larger piece for more
beans. (You do not have to rinse the kombu. The white powdery stuff is is
salt.) When the kombu is cooked with the beans in the pressure cooker it
almost always falls apart so I just leave it in with the beans.
Hope this helps, Jan Bennicoff
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