Lentils altitude Joseph

[Guest guest]

> Could you share the lentil and altitude cooking tip. I never knew

it

> would make a difference.

> I write all these tips from the group down for future reference,

it

> sure has helped me.

> Joseph

>

 

Joseph,

Here is the info. Some of it is specific to my altitude (3400 ft) so

you would need to read the charts at the link to figure out cooking

time for your altitude. I hope it helps. Also, I know a lot of

recipes call for cooking the lentils with everything else but I

never do that. I cook the lentils in WATER only - especially no

salt - and add them in cooked and proceed with recipe. It's what

works for me.

 

Shelly

 

" Without going into complexity of physics, water 'boils' when its

vapour pressure

equals that of the surrounding atmospheric pressure. Since you are

at an altitude much higher than sea level there will be a marked

difference in air pressure and a consequential reduction in the

temperature at which water (or anything else)boils. To calculate the

temperature of water boiling at altitude other than sea level use

 

Table 1 in this link

 

http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Calib-boil.html

 

You will see that your water will boil at around 206 oF (about 97

oC) which is quite a difference. You therefore need to allow a

longer cooking time to ensure food is cooked correctly. You will

certainly need to cook with a much larger volume of water to

maintain heat transfer and to avoid further losses. I suggest that

you increase the boiling/simmering time by 50%. So instead of

cooking for 30 minutes then cook for 45 minutes. (Quite a lot of

energy though). (Note here that if you are using salted water (ooh

how bad) then the water salt compound will boil at a slightly higher

temperature.)So for your lentils and knowing that a national dish of

Nepal is 'dal bhaat' I thought I would look in my Indian Recipe

Book. What I found is that they mostly cook for 30-35 minutes and

then stir vigorously and then boil again for an extra 10 minutes.

(Some of these recipes are for a mushy lentil so that is probably

the reason). The other common observation is that there are

different kinds of lentils and they need to be cooked slightly

differently. Another method is to bring the lentils to a boil and

then boil for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave sealed (with

the lid on) for 2 hours. Then proceed with normal cooking say to

simmer them for 20 to 30 minutes. "