The joys of pressure cooking - I recently purchased an electronic one.

[closeupready]

I didn't want a stovetop one because they scare me, so I got an electronic one to see how much time I could cut from my recipes.

I love it on so many levels:

1) Beef stew from scratch? 1 hour, from start to finish/mealtime.

2) Lentils? 30 minutes.

3) Pasta? Not much time savings, but in terms of clean-up, no colander needed, no tossing bowl needed.

I still have lots to experiment on (for example, eggplant, chicken, stocks, etc.), since I've had it only for a couple months, but this thing is going to save me so much money.

I have cooked large batches of meals, and had lunch for the coming week from just about everything. I made some green lentils a few weeks ago, froze them in single-serve batches, and warmed it up for lunch -

They aren't much to look at in frozen form (just a frozen, brown block of something wrapped in plastic, lol), but after heating in the microwave, DAMN it tastes SO good.

[OriginalGeek]

1. this is relative to my interests

those being:
Food
Saving money
Food
Eating food
Saving food and money
and food.

I've actually been trying to talk my wife into getting one for a few months now but she is very resistant. Afraid of all the exploding kitchen stories.

But I remember my mom having one when I was a kid and she hardly ever blew anything up. I'm pretty much disappointed in every beef stew I've had since I left home.

[closeupready]

2. The electronic ones are very safe - they don't come to as high of a pressure

as stovetop ones, and many of them have multiple built-in failsafe protections to prevent "Breakfast At Tiffany's" type accidents.

I just can't get over how much I love this thing - no hovering over the stove, no constant stirring, no adjusting temperature - it's not 100% perfect (I do have some hotspots in mine, and the silicone seal acquires odors), but I'm practically ready to get married to the thing.

[Major Nikon]

10. All pressure cookers sold today have some type of overpressure relief

This is also true of things like coffee pots and espresso makers that have boilers.

I had an old espresso machine that popped the overpressure valve one time. It scared the shit out of me, but probably less so than if it didn't have that safety feature.

[So Far From Heaven]

14. Back in the bad old days

Grandma used a pressure cooker on a wood burning stove for all kinds of stuff, but mostly pinto beans. The ranch is at 7200 feet altitude, and if you want your beans sometime today, you need to pressure cook them.

One day a bean stuck in the rocker orifice and it over pressurized. Then the safety plug blew out.

In about a second and a half there was 5 quarts of beans and juice on the ceiling and cascading down on the stove and floor.

Scared the shit out of everybody, but was a topic of conversation for years.

If you're using an oldie listen for the rocker.

[missingthebigdog]

22. And this is the extent of the damage

I LOVE my vintage pressure cookers, and cook with them frequently. The tales of them exploding and sending shrapnel flying are huge over-exaggerations.

Even a mishap like the one you describe can be avoided by keeping an eye on what you are cooking.

[OriginalGeek]

11. my wife knows how much I love food

maybe she's afraid I will develop romantic feelings for the pressure cooker lol.
that's probably why we keep the grill at my grandpa's...so I don't have any alone time with it...

[closeupready]

13. lol

[sarge43]

16. Two errors are responsible 99% of the time for pressure cooker dinner on the ceiling.

1. Leaving the heat too high. Once it comes up to pressure, the heat must be turned down to point of just maintain pressure.

2. Removing the lid before pressure is completely dissipated.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I have one...

started a thread about it in C&B a while back. Pressure cookers suffer from that bad rep, but are still great. And perfectly safe now.

Yes, it cuts cooking time down to the bone, and meats are tender. It also merges flavors deliciously in stews and such-- no need to simmer all afternoon.

The only downside I've noticed is no browning should you do a whole chicken, or meat cut where you expect crisping. You get thorough cooking, and good flavor, but not high, dry, heat.

[closeupready]

4. Though I don't do much elaborateness in the kitchen, I did wonder about

how a chicken would turn out. I guess I'll continue going out for steaks and fried chicken.

But for everyday stuff, how on Earth can it be beat? Dinner today is an allowed 'cheat'/high carb/whatever meal, and I wanted to try mac 'n cheese with pork sausages.

[KamaAina]

5. Please tell me you don't live in Boston!

[closeupready]

6. I know, right? lol, did you ever see "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?

There is a well-known scene in which Audrey Hepburn's stovetop pc blows its lid. !! Let's see if I can find it:

[OriginalGeek]

12. i'd blow up a lot of stuff

to get Audrey Hepburn to jump into my arms.

[femmocrat]

7. I would love to learn how to use one properly.

I bought one a few years ago (not electronic though) and never could figure out how much liquid to use, etc. My dad was a wizard with the pressure cooker and made the best soup and ethnic dishes.

[closeupready]

8. I have an Instant Pot, 7-in-1, bought on Amazon for about $130, and

it's virtually effortless. I think the most you need to remember (on this particular model) is that there is a sauté button - if you want to do preliminaries like browning meat and sweating onions (just like you could on a stovetop), that's possible with this one.

And then the buttons on the face have preset times, though you can set times yourself manually if you know how cooked you want things. There are tons of helpful videos on Youtube, as well.

Just try not to fill it over halfway, and don't do foamy stuff like oatmeal because the foam will actually clog the vent.

[femmocrat]

9. Thanks!

Why didn't I think of youtube!!!

[noamnety]

19. I love my instant pot!

Not sure why, but nothing makes me feel smarter than doing a curry in the bottom of the pot, and putting a small pot of brown rice on the trivet thing above the curry so it steams while the rest is cooking.

[sarge43]

15. Recommend Lorna Sass's Pressure Perfect and Cooking Under Pressure

Detailed instructions for using a stove top pressure cooker. Cooking time charts with liquid to ingredients ratios and hundreds of recipes from broths to desserts, including a cheese cake recipe.

Hubby and I used her books to get started pressure cooking and they never led us wrong.

Did Shrimp Creole with rice today. Rice took 7 minutes, creole, 5. The prep took longer.

[fleabiscuit]

21. I scored!

Just picked up a hard cover Cooking Under Pressure for nearly nothing at Goodwill.

I often visit http://www.hippressurecooking.com to (don't hurt me) see what's cooking.

[Nac Mac Feegle]

17. Try some of the dessert recipes

"Baked Apples" in a PC with a wine sauce is wonderful.

A cheesecake is delightful, too.

Just Google Pressure Cooker Recipes, and have fun.

[auntAgonist]

18. I recently bought a stove top stainless steel one and I love it!! Presto is the brand name.

I've done roasts, full heads of cabbage, veggies .. all in short time


I followed the instructions to a T and wasn't at all nervous.

If you do as instructed nothing can really go wrong.

The flavour in pressure cooked foods is amazing.

enjoy yours.

aA

[HereSince1628]

20. I use my big stove top pressure cooker for pressure frying

I learned to do that back in the mid 60s working for the Col. It can do 2 cut up chickens in 12 minutes. Makes cooking for a picnic a picnic.

I've also use mine for canning green beans, kidney beans, corn and beets

[missingthebigdog]

23. Please share your method!

I recently acquired a pressure cooker big enough to fry in, and am dying to try it.

[HereSince1628]

24. When I pressure fry...

I put an entire gallon of oil in the cooker...that fills my cooker about 1/3 of the way. If you have a small pressure cooker you'll need to adjust. The idea is to safely deep fry, that means none of the boiling/bubbling action spits oil up and out the pressure valve!

I cut whole chickens that are on the smaller size... about 2 lbs each, into 9, yes, 9 pieces. To do that you cut the front of the breast (the part with the keel bone) off the ribs. You've done that right if a leg of the wishbone ends up on both ribs. Fold the wing tip under the larger bone so that it makes a neat triangular shape... all that makes the pieces close to the same size and makes cooking more even.

Heat the oil to 400F I have a thermometer than hangs into the oil. This takes a while as I have small burners on my range.

I bread the chicken in a seasoned flour after dipping it in a milk and egg wash, being sure to knock off extra flour

I gently drop the chicken into the oil piece by piece and let it sit for a minute, then stir it...this helps it to not stick.

Then the lid goes on and I cook at 10lbs of pressure. As the pressure comes up and the weight jiggles I turn the heat down a bit so that the pressure is maintained jiggling gently a handful of time a minute.

The idea is to start at 400 and continue cooking at about 375.

I time cooking for 10 minutes -after- the pressure is up. Then turn off the heat and release the pressure, when the pressure is mostly out (that takes my cooker more than a minute). I have a safety device on my lid that keeps my lid from twisting to open even when pressure is very low, I have to release the lid by lifting that safety... when the lids off I fish out the chicken and set it on a cooling grill in a baking sheet to drain excess oil.

The result is fried chicken with a 'soft' crust, pretty much exactly what KFC calls 'original'.

I filter the oil and save it in the refrigerator for other frying. This method will also work for ribs which can then be dressed with a BBQ sauce after frying and finished in a couple minutes under a broiler.

[missingthebigdog]

25. Awesome!

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I am so trying this next weekend.