I’ve made long grain rice in mine twice and both times it came out a lot stickier than when made in a regular pot. Once was on the rice button and once was on manual.
I want dryer rice! What should I do? Less water, more time?
My old fashioned pressure cooker can take a frozen roast and make it moist and stringy in about 30 minutes. My general “recipe” is frozen meat for 20 minutes then add potatoes, carrots, onion for an additional 10. You can add a can of tomato soup or cream of mushroom and the juice will come out pretty tasty. It’s not fine dining but it’s a great way to get a meal on the table when you forget to defrost something.
I’m really interested in these electric slow cooker/pressure cooker combo units. Anybody have a good brand for me to research.
Well… $250 is 2.5 times higher than $100.
And anyway, I didn’t question running it by her, I wondered why you had to **justify **(i.e., make a case for) it.
Well, I brought home a convertible mustang without asking before and it was no problem.
Kitchen gadgets though she seems to think I have too many of them.
I’d recommend a modern stove-top model over the electric ones (I have a Fagor DUO 6 qt). More versatile, higher pressures (15 vs about 10 psi), and faster all around- comes to pressure faster, and you can run cold water over it to drop the pressure fast(seconds!) as well.
Pretty much anything that benefits from long cooking to break down gelatin or tough cell walls works better in a pressure cooker, because the combination of higher heat, pressure and moisture speed those reactions along very efficiently.
I’m partial to this recipe:
Done right, they’re AWESOME.
Instant Pot
Amazon link: http://smile.amazon.com/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Programmable-Stainless/dp/B00FLYWNYQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1451944824&sr=1-1&keywords=instant+pot
Read the specs, comments, and reviews. Very informative.
Cost isn’t the issue… we have an entire closet sized pantry filled with the kitchen gadgets I’ve “needed” and many have been rarely used. The over flow has been moved into the garage. We won’t even mention the home brewing equipment in the basement that made 36 mediocre beers.
That was my point- different families set limits at different places. And yeah, justify, explain, decide, talk about etc.- that’s not so crazy. Depends if a family is saving up for a big purchase, or spending down debt, or whatever. Some couples scrutinize their purchases more than others. Doesn’t seem so shocking to me.
That’s really funny- in a sad-I-can-relate sort of way.
Anyway, prob shouldn’t hijack much further than that.
I get that, but **you **were the one who named a $$ figure. I’m maddeningly literal-minded and read what is right in front of me. Years of editing experience. Don’t extrapolate or figure out what the person meant to say-- read what they did say.
Officially moving on.
Believe me, I understand having to justify - for me, it’s winter coats and kitchen accoutrements. For Tony, it’s camping gear. I don’t care if he finds a tent for a buck-ninety-five. In seven years, no one in the family has ever once camped. Tony isn’t able, and the rest of us aren’t interested. We already have 3 tents too many! Unlike Tony, I actually use my kitchen stuff and winter coats, but I have beyond enough - guesstimating 40 stovetop pots and pans? At least as many baking vessels? Christmas dishes for 20, and every day stoneware for about 24. Et cetera. The kitchen is too small for what I already have! And maybe 15 nice heavy coats plus a couple of grubby ones for yard work and such - and we live in a subtropical climate! The closet is full. If I find a Burberry or Le Creuset for $1.95, I’d better figure out what I’m getting rid of!
No worries… the $ was just a descriptor like purple or green. I didn’t get in trouble for bringing home a $30k car, but I did for a $40 ice cream thing.
The justification usually boils down to “how often will we use it, and where will we put it?”
I have a regular pressure cooker and have recently been making risotto in it. Is amazing. Is fast. Is no stirring. The recipe I started with calls for a 1-2 ratio of arborio to broth, but I find you need more. You sautée some onions, toast the rice in some butter, and try it on high pressure for 7 minutes. I find you still have to simmer it for maybe five or so once you release pressure, your mileage may vary. It will blow your mind that this is possible
I am cooking a slightly tweaked version of the chicken and black bean stew from Fuzzy Dunlop’s link, and if it tastes half as good as it smells? I already recommend it! (My tweaks were minor, subbing a couple of ingredients for their close cousins, to use what I already had on hand.) Thanks!
The beans could have used a little more cooking time, and the whole dish needed about 50% more spice, but the chicken and black bean stew was otherwise delicious! Tonight, I’ll try Ivory Tower’s pasta.
Could well be that the recipe was written for a 15 psi stovetop cooker, and the electric models only get to 10 or 11 psi.
Adapted a slow cooker recipe (Slow Cooker Taco Chicken Bowls - Budget Bytes) last night for the pressure cooker:
4 chicken thighs (bone and skin)
8 oz smooth salsa (I use Costco’s)
1 TB chili powder
0.5 T cumin
0.5 T granulated garlic
0.5 t oregano
0.25 t cayenne pepper
1 can black beans (drained)
8 oz frozen corn
0.5 cup water
salt and pepper
Put chicken in bottom of pot and pour rest of ingredients over and mix so chicken is coated.
High pressure of 10-12 minutes
Natural release for about 5 minutes
Quick release
Stir chicken around to shred, remove bones and skin. Chicken should be extremely soft and tender. Stir until well shredded and mixed. Sauce will thicken as you stir. Adjust salt and pepper.
Serve over rice with cheese, sour cream, etc.
Usually this takes me 8 hours in a low crockpot. When I try it stove-top the chicken doesn’t get very tender in as short a time as the pressure cooker took. In pressure cooker it achieved the same tenderness I get from the crockpot.
Piggybacking on my own question a bit:
We are having friends over for steaks Friday night (I had some nice ones set aside in the freezer, set aside for the very first moment that a dear colleague of Tony’s was able to join us to celebrate his kidney transplant. And hooray - now we celebrate!) Same friend is interested in getting his own electric pressure cooker, because it would help him cook and eat in a more healthy and frugal way, given the demands of his job.) Any ideas for a pressure cooker recipe that would go well with steak, so I can tell him more about the process and overall benefits, with proof that he can taste? Maybe something like baked beans?
Yeah, my wife got me one for my birthday this past year. Very easy to use and no worries about blowing what you’re cooking through the top of the thing. (My mother had that happen once when I was a kid and the same thing happened to my FIL a couple of years ago.) I like to cook pork butt and roast beef in it.