I remember buying mine because I had my Imusa stovetop cooker, which I liked, but it started to get a little bit … dodgy. It wasn’t always sealing quite right and I started losing a bit of confidence in it. I had heard about these electric pressure cookers (other brands of the device had been around for awhile), but when, coincidentally, I saw these Instant Pots on Amazon for $70 (order history shows July 12, 2016 on that order) I had to buy one, and I just fell in love with the thing. Here we are, almost 8 years later, and I use it just as much as when I first got it. Haven’t had any problems except I needed to replace a fuse in 2020 on it. Still even have the original sealing ring which works well! (Maybe I should get a new one anyway.)
Wow, so I did! At that time I wasn’t looking to buy any kitchen stuff; had everything I needed.
I’m kind of a ‘slow food’ guy; most of what I cook is a well-melded casserole sort of thing.
Rather thought of pressure cookers as an attempt towards a ‘Jetsons Instant Everything’ fifties meme: flying cars, robot maid, one-use paper clothes and so forth…
Where’s the Star Trek replicator? Can it rival Escoffier?
I believe I got mine (not the Instapot brand, but equivalent) about a year after they became popular. As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I’m a long time slow cooker user, but one of my friends bought an electric pressure cooker during the 2016 rush, loved it, and bought one for myself and the wife.
We absolutely do use it, the wife especially (she’s a vegetarian, and it’s great for a huge number of rice and bean dishes as stated repeatedly in thread) - but I use it somewhat less than the slow cookers. Still, I’d bet on average it’s used at least once a week, putting it right behind the toaster and the air fryer.
And thank god we live in a house these days, because if I had a really small kitchen or any of the apartments we’ve lived in previously, I’d probably have to seriously downsize.
Note for @Lancia - I’m not devaluing an electric pressure cooker at all, but based on this:
I think an air fryer is actually a slightly better fit for you in terms of speed and lack of work. Tons of pre-prepped foods and meats can be done very quickly, and even ye olde “meat, chunk of” can be seasoned and cooked quickly in the air fryer in a comparatively short period of time. Granted, the instapot cooks quickly, BUT you still do have to wait for time to come to pressure and for the pressure to drop at the end (you can do a ‘quick’ release on most, but I try to avoid it).
Of course, the fix would be to get the earlier mentioned instapot with air fryer features, or do a bit of preplanning: if you have a fully programmable option, you can set it up to turn on and begin cooking whenever you’re ready, rather than when you walk in the door at the end of a long day. With any of these options you should be fine.
EVERY SINGLE Indian household owns at least one pressure cooker. Its the fastest way to cook daily staples like lentils, rice and perhaps potatoes - all in one go. We had stackable containers that would go into the cooker. Of course some kinds of lentils had to be cooked separately because they needed more time than the rice.
That’s funny, because that’s how I ended up buying my first stovetop pressure cooker, through a combination of watching some Indian friends of mine use it, to all the times I found it mentioned in online Indian recipes. Lots of directions about waiting for certain number of whistles. My pressure cookers don’t do the whistles, so I had to figure out how to convert that information.
The Instant Pot company itself filed for Chapter 11 last year and was bought by someone called Centre Lane Partners. It seems they sold a lot of Instant Pots, but they turned out to be very reliable and sturdy, so once everyone had one, and gave one as a gift, there was no need to buy another. I’m still not sure if they’re turning a profit now or not.
Same here - I watched my Indian male friend who had never cooked before learn to cook by making chicken biryani in a pressure cooker. I figured if he could do it, so could I. Now, I’d kind of like an instant pot, but I have 3 pressure cookers and would have to get rid of 2 of them in order to justify it. One of these days…
As I mentioned earlier, we use our electronic pressure cooker 2-3 x weekly, with never a problem incident, for nearly 30 years now. Prior to that, we did use the old fashioned stove top style pressure cooker for the decade previous to that. During that time we did experience 3 episodes of the vent weight getting jarred off due to inadvisable handling or by not setting the temp on the stove correctly. Each time we ended up with some food on the ceiling, but no explosions, no burns, etc.
We did try an instant pot during their heyday, but it was more difficult to use than our pressure cooker, and it kept giving us thickly scorched food on the bottom. So we returned it.
Me toooooo!! (Me three, I guess, if we don’t count ashtayk’s initial remark about their ubiquity in Indian households.)
I remember my mom using her stovetop pressure cooker pot when I was a kid, but my impression of it was basically just “weird and slightly scary pot, do not mess with”. And then my impression of the device shifted, like xtenkfarpl’s, to “obsolete 1950sish kitchen contrivance”.
And then I started visiting India on the regular, and noticed that EVERYBODY was cooking in their good old Prestige stovetop pressure cooker, and the results were fast and delicious. And I said to myself, “Self, why are we spending hours to soak and cook dried legumes in regular pots when we could just get one of these nifty time-saving energy-saving devices like Mom used, and get the chickpeas ready in half an hour?”
So I got a (smallish) Prestige at the store in some Indian city or other and carted it home in my checked luggage, and US Customs side-eyed it a bit because apparently some people make bombs with them? but we were all done with the flying at that point so they let me keep it. And now it is the trusty weekly legume workhorse!
He’s right- soda cans are in the 25-60 PSI range, and pressure cookers on high are at a relatively paltry 15 psi. And they’ve got pressure release valves and other safety measures that soda cans and beer bottles don’t.
I’d buy that. I used to mostly make stews in a Dutch oven, and they always came out great. Now i make them in the instant pot, because it’s easier and faster, and … they taste about the same, if i brown the meat first. But I’m using different recipes, so i can’t judge side-by-side.
The hot gift item when i got married was a stock pot, and we were gifted two or three of them. They didn’t brown the food, and even if a took the time to brown in a different pot (i use the instant pot’s “saute” function to brown) the broth still seemed thin and insipid. And having to do so much prep in the morning didn’t fit my workflow.
We still have an old stovetop pressure cooker, but i never liked to use it. You have to watch it as it comes up to temp, and then fiddle with the temp to keep it clattering away smoothly. The instant pot is “set and forget”. And i hated cleaning that thing. It has giant metal flanges on both the pot and the lid to hold it together under pressure, and they had sharp edges. The pot, in particular, with its wide pointy top was always unpleasant for me to clean. The part of the instant pot that food touches is smooth and relatively light and much easier to handle. And i wasn’t afraid the pressure cooker would literally blow up, but i was a little afraid I’d run it too hot and the pressure relief valve would blow and spew hot bean water all over the bottom of the microwave. So… I basically never used it (my husband, who likes beans, did) and now i use my instant pot every week.
But i think my favorite feature of the instant pot is the “keep warm” setting. I worry about timing. So long as supper is done “early enough” it will just quietly sit there, safe and warm, until I’m ready for it. Same with broth. I don’t have to strain it before going to bed, it will just sit until morning.
Yeah, the biggest adjustment for me, which I think I mentioned upthread, is to reduce the amount of liquid when doing the recipe in a pressure cooker. I don’t really measure anything when I cook stews, but my rough guess is I use about half the liquid, and since I don’t have the benefit of concentration through evaporation, I usually hit it with a litttle bouillon to get some of that flavor back.
I use mine to make stock; whenever there is a meal with bones*, I collect them up and throw them in a big plastic box in the freezer.
When I am trimming vegetables I keep things like carrot and parsnip peels/tops/tails, celery trim, onion bases and tops (and some of the outer layers that are too wrinkled to use), trimmings off the mushroom stalks, twiggy parts of herbs like thyme and rosemary, etc - these also go in a box in the freezer (labelled ‘veg bones’).
(* I don’t usually keep bones if they have already been stewed or casseroled - the goodness is gone from those)
When the boxes are full enough, I throw the whole lot in my pressure cooker, add water, bayleaves, maybe some more herbs, then I close it up and put it on the ‘stock’ setting and walk away (it’s an automatic one with various programs); an hour and a half later, I come back and open it and strain the stock; the pressure cooking really extracts the gelatin from the bones and the flavour from everything. It takes an hour in the pressure cooker to do what would probably take 4 hours in a normal pot on the cooker (and I’d have to check in on it to make sure it’s not boiling dry etc).
I sometimes freeze the resulting stock, but more usually this process drives the meal choices for that week; if I have good stock like this, I will make risotto or paella or some similar rice thing, I will make soup or stew, and with the last bit, I will make some gravy to go with a roast dinner - which may in turn contribute some bones to go in another box in the freezer.
I do also use it for batch cooked soups, stews, sauces, etc - pressure cooking is particularly good for cooking meat until it is really tender, so even a tomato and minced beef based sauce for pasta cooks to be rich and meaty and tender in just half an hour.
Same. And I’ve also settled on 90 minutes as the ideal time to brothify the results. I like to roast chicken, and two chicken carcasses, plus the necks and giblets, and however much vegetable scraps I’ve collected in the time between the two chickens, plus maybe a fresh onion and some salt, makes a fabulous rich delicious broth.
Stocks are not something I make when I get home from work and want a quick dinner without lots of work.
Stocks are what I do on a Sunday afternoon. So what if it sits for four hours on the stove? While that happens I do my other chores (laundry, dusting, etc.). Or, watch the football game or a movie. Tending to the stock is trivial…usually when I am back in the kitchen for some water or a beer or whatever. Take a peek…maybe stir…maybe remove that scum from the top (which you can’t do in an InstaPot).
I freeze most of my stock for later use (some put in ice cube trays then transfer to a big ziplock baggie…the rest in plastic containers).
I’m really not seeing how making that process 1/3 of the time gains me anything.
Now, if the result is better then that is something else.
I admit I am new to stock making (last year-ish) so I might be missing something.
Like I said, the pressure cooking extracts the gelatin and flavours much better than normal simmering (it’s cooking at 120 celsius)
The convenience of being able to walk away and not think about whether it’s boiling dry or boiling over is a bonus. The main point is that it cooks things differently.
I’ve never found it necessary to do that, even when I used a saucepan or slow cooker to make my stock. I suppose if I intended to make beautifully clear stock for consomme or something, I might do that, but I just make the stock and strain it.
This is why I love the Instant Pot for cooking rice. It’s not really any faster than cooking it on the stove, but with the Instant Pot I can set and go do other stuff. It has a timer, so when it’s done, it shuts off. I don’t have to worry about getting distracted and forgetting to turn off the heat when it’s done and letting it boil dry.
Also, you’re using less energy when you cook something for one hour instead of four hours.
This is a key reason why stovetop pressure cookers are so ubiquitous in India, where a lot of the people didn’t/don’t have unlimited access to cooking fuel, and where a lot of the weather is very hot. Long stovetop simmering can have noticeable impacts on both your budget and your personal comfort level under those circumstances.
