|
As the title says, I just bought a 6 quart Fagor Duo pressure cooker on a whim as it was 40% off in a local department store. I've never used one in my life. I cook a lot of slow-cooked meals in my Staub french oven, and am really excited at the prospect of making lamb shanks in a hurry on a weeknight, rather than it being designated to a Sunday afternoon affair when I've got hours to sit at home and let it cook away. Are there any particularly good online resources that I should be looking at for pressure cooker recipes / tips? I basically have no idea what I'm doing right now and would love to use this thing a whole lot. Thanks.
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 11:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 13:33 |
|
|
Chili, chicken and dumplings. Take your favorite recipes and adapt them for this. Chili you can make basically the same way just in less time, and them simmer to reduce. The chicken and dumplings you can do basically the same, but use the pressure cooker to cook the dumplings separately from the de-boned chicken once it's cooked, and then add the chicken back.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 13:22
|
|
|
This is going to sounds like an infomercial but pressure cookers are pretty much every cook's best friend. Anything that you would normally do in a slow cooker/ dutch oven you can do in a fraction of the time in a pressure cooker. Mine gets used most frequently for making stock. Throw your bones and vegetables in there, fill with water up to the line (make sure not to fill past that or it will never get to pressure), turn the heat on it till it gets to pressure, turn it down to maintain it and then let it sit on the stove for an hour. Perfectly clear stock. I also really like to do dried beans. Rather than having to soak them overnight and then simmer on a stovetop for hours and hours you drop the beans in, fill with liquid and then do like the above for about an hour. This is really great for tougher beans like black beans. Getting tender Cuban black beans in an hour is a wonderful thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 18:17
|
|
|
I just got a Montel Williams pressure cooker as a gift. I have yet to use it. It came with an instructional dvd, I guess I should watch that first.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 19:27
|
|
|
amishbuttermaster posted:I also really like to do dried beans. Rather than having to soak them overnight and then simmer on a stovetop for hours and hours you drop the beans in, fill with liquid and then do like the above for about an hour. This is really great for tougher beans like black beans. Getting tender Cuban black beans in an hour is a wonderful thing. Cooking beans without a pressure cooker is like living in the nightmarish black-and-white world of the infomercial where THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY. There is, and it's a pressure cooker. Pressure those beans.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 19:50
|
|
|
Paging Dino to this thread In the meantime here are some Dino posts about stacking several things at once in a pressure cooker http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3381440&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=29#post399579229 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3381440&pagenumber=30&perpage=40#post399585779 Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Mar 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 20:11
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 23:13
|
|
|
EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2012 23:40
|
|
|
EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:That's amazing and you need to share the whole story. As a cautionary tale, of course.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Jesus, I've seen a couple pictures of the seals or the valve failing catastrophically and making a mess/releasing tons of steam, I don't think I've ever seen the whole lock mechanism fail like that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 02:18
|
|
|
EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Can't stop laughing at this. To contribute, wasn't pressure-frying part of the Colonel's original magic? I say go with that, unless it's a bunch of crap and you don't get any better results than you do with deep-frying. edit: Welp, I was wrong! Here's why quote:Used properly, today's modern pressure cookers are very safe,but even small amounts of hot oil under pressure will splatter and damage the gasket. The same gasket that performs well at 250 degrees in normal use, may melt away in 400 degree heat of boiling oil and cause serious damage. I say try it anyways; burn victim is a sexy look. slicing up eyeballs fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Mar 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 02:31
|
|
|
That's why I always stay out of the room while my pressure cooker is doing its thing. Even though I know it probably isn't going to explode and kill me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 03:07
|
|
|
I made pork green chili stew in a pressure cooker I got for ~$15 many years ago. It was awesome, took about an hour instead of three, four hours.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 04:07
|
|
|
While I understand most people don't consider beans part of chili I like to have them in the pot to help fill me up on a low budget. Pressure Cooker's definitely take a lot of time off of cooking bagged unprepared beans and in my opinion you get a better flavor out of it. Two of the recipe's I've had come out best are Alton Brown's rendition of pressure cooked chili ( I added beans ) and the chicken soup he made in of of his earlier episodes of good eats. I believe you can find both on the food network website.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 04:44
|
|
|
Regardless of one's philosophy on chili, dried beans and legumes are an very useful source of inexpensive protein. When it gets down to it a pressure cooker is the fast food method of slow cooking. Once you get something to pressure you have a 6 hour braise of tough cuts of meat or beans down to around an hour or so. If you have a long day at work you can prep a lot of meals in 15-20 minutes, throw it in the pressure cooker, take a nap for an hour and then have dinner.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 05:44
|
|
|
You can make flubber! *Pulls Robin Williams face* Or on a more serious note try grand scholar google as he knows all. I have seen people busy with em in the past mainly my mother but to be fairly honest I am scared like hell to come near one of those things. I have seen things you know.. bad things..
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 09:40
|
|
|
Soups work really well because you can cut the time down from hours to minutes. French onion soup is a good example - but you still need to fry the onions a while first. If your not into that how about a nice Italian chicken soup. I'm sure there are many nice pressure soup recipes out there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 10:40
|
|
|
MOAR posted:pressure soup Wiggles' next band name spotted.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2012 12:59
|
|
|
in 30 minutes, you can make yourself the juiciest and most tender ribs imaginable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2012 08:19
|
|
|
So this past St. Patrick's day, we left the brisket for way too long in the slow cooker and it tasted like poo poo. So I ran to the store, and picked up another (on sale! woo!). I seared it, put a small amount of water in the pressure cooker, and 38 minutes later is was loving perfect.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2012 21:18
|
|
|
Does anyone have a rough idea of how to adapt regular recipes to pressure cookers? I always follow the America's Test Kitchen braised lamb shanks in red wine/chicken stock recipe and it comes out perfectly in my Staub after simmering for 3 hours, but I'm assuming if I try that same recipe in the pressure cooker it'll come out lovely because you don't need as much liquid. Anyone have any ideas? Is there basic 'rule of thumb' when it comes to re-scaling regular recipes to the pressure cooker?
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2012 00:39
|
|
|
Cathab posted:Does anyone have a rough idea of how to adapt regular recipes to pressure cookers? I always follow the America's Test Kitchen braised lamb shanks in red wine/chicken stock recipe and it comes out perfectly in my Staub after simmering for 3 hours, but I'm assuming if I try that same recipe in the pressure cooker it'll come out lovely because you don't need as much liquid. I usually pop any slow-cooking meat in for between twenty and thirty minutes, then test it for tenderness. If it needs more, it gets ten to fifteen more minutes. If you're worried about too much liquid, you can always pop the meat out (or not) and reduce on a high heat/thicken with roux until you've got a delicious sauce. For your red wine/stock recipe it might be worth using a more concentrated stock and reducing the amount you put in, to get the same results.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2012 13:55
|
|
|
EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:Ok, I'm going to need to know what happened here. I love my pressure cooker. Chili, pork shoulder, stews, ribs, pretty much any slow cooked meal can be vastly accelerated. I need a new one though, mine is an old fashioned one that sits on the stove top and lately has been leaking water as it builds up pressure which makes me think the seal is going. I don't want to recreate the big bang in my kitchen.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2012 17:51
|
|
|
Alton Brown's Good Eats Don't be chicken of dumplings http://www.hulu.com/watch/328750/good-eats-dont-be-chicken-of-dumplings#s-p1-so-i0 Skip to 10.5 minutes in to see him talk about a stew chick briefly, segueing into a discussion and explanation of pressure cookers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 3, 2012 20:28
|
|
|
angerbutt posted:Cooking beans without a pressure cooker is like living in the nightmarish black-and-white world of the infomercial where THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY. Will that actually make the beans nice and soft? If so I may have to go buy a pressure cooker.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2012 06:40
|
|
|
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/caramelized-carrot-soup This is an example of some refined technique using a pressure cooker. Used properly you can actually make some serious food with them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2012 10:16
|
|
|
Man, I can't tell you how many times the pressure cooker has saved my rear end when I'm in a rush. We eat only brown rice at home, and the rice cooker takes 1 hour and change to make a pot of the stuff. In the cooker, it takes 10 minutes after reaching pressure. Chickpeas, cooked from the unsoaked state, can be done in 20 minutes. Red lentils take about 7 minutes. Chayote, potatoes, yucca, quinoa, millet, carrots, etc take about 5 minutes flat. If you want to avoid the somewhat flat taste that pressure cooked food sometimes has, do the tarka thing. You cook your veg/beans/whatever until they're tender. While that happens, in a separate pan, sweat/sautee your onions, garlic, peppers, spices etc, and cook through till tender. Then, when the food in the pressure cooker is done, combine the sauteed aromatics and pressure cooker food. If you did end up pressure cooking your entire recipe, and it tastes flat, a bit of red pepper flakes, some fresh herbs, or a bit of acid (lemon or lime juice) will generally perk it all right up. As Steve Yun mentioned, I like to stack bowls inside my cooker, so that I can cook small quantities for me and my husband. Get some cheap dollar store stainless steel bowls that fit into your pressure cooker, and the sky's the limit!
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2012 13:15
|
|
|
Pressure cookers are totally amazing for stock. I made some lamb shank yesterday - seared off the legs, seared off the veal bones (sorry keller), seared off the veg, cooked the bones + veg for two hours, added the legs for a half hour, strained and refrigerated shanks w/ stock. The only problem is that you can't skim the stock on regular intervals without depressurizing the cooker - if there's no steam coming out of the cooker, then the liquid's not boiling, so you won't have to after the initial boil. This is why Nils Noren found that stock made in the Kuhn Rikon style pressure cooker was better - the liquid inside of those is completely still, as steam isn't vented. The problem with steam-venting pressure cookers is that, even if there's an indicator telling you if the cooker is pressurized, you don't know HOW pressurized. The trick I'm going to use going forward when cooking at 15 PSI is to keep it going low enough that there's no steam coming out, then every so often quickly switching the cooker to 8 PSI, just for an instant. If steam comes out, then we're between 8 and 15 PSI, which is fine. For a home cook's purposes, this really only matters for stock. The only reason that braised meat made in a pressure cooker might be inferior is because it comes up to temp faster, meaning that more juice is wringed out once the meat hits 180 degrees. If you refrigerate the meat in the braising liquid before you serve it, then this is somewhat mitigated. Basically, pressure cookers are amazing and I really can't imagine doing a braise without it. It really is as much a miracle device as you think, and the ability to make stock so easily really opens up what a home cook can make in a huge way.
|
|
#
?
Apr 6, 2012 14:26
|
|
|
I was coming here to ask this in the general thread but since this thread is here I'll ask. What should I look for when buying a pressure cooker? I'm mostly interested in cooking a lot of beans really fast but I don't know what size I need. If I could cook a 2kg bag of beans in one go that'd be amazing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 7, 2012 06:49
|
|
|
I pressured up some Cuban black beans. Dry to perfectly cooked and tender in under an hour. Not much to look at but, hey, they're beans.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2012 21:04
|
|
|
Just tried my first pressure cooker meal. Made some mac and cheese. Came out pretty bland, but that's the recipe. Next time, in go the sun dried tomatoes. The macaroni itself was cooked perfectly though. Just a tiny bit past al dente maybe. Normally I cook it to mush by accident in a regular pot.  The recipe for this came from the Montel Williams recipe book that was in the box. Recipe: 2 cups water 2 cups skim milk (might be better with whole milk) 3 cup shredded cheddar 3 tbsp butter 4 cups elbow macaroni 1 tsp sea salt 1. Melt the butter with the non-pressure lid on, using the "BROWN" setting. 2. Mix in the macaroni to cover it with butter. Then mix in the water and salt. 3. Cancel "BROWN" mode. Set it to 40 kpa for 6 minutes. 4. Once the timer reaches zero, release the valve. Mix in your milk and cheese. 5. Set it to 40 kpa for 2 minutes. Once the time reaches zero, release the pressure valve. At this point you can either eat the macaroni, or reenact the end of Terminator 2 by pouring it over your head.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2012 08:14
|
|
|
Be careful - my local paper reported a spectacular pressure cooker mishap. http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10800134
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2012 15:36
|
|
|
particle409 posted:The recipe for this came from the Montel Williams recipe book that was in the box. Recipe: whole milk, sauteed onions, pepper, garlic, a little bit of sambal oelek, and/or a sharper cheese and you'll be good to go.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2012 20:08
|
|
|
Miguel Angel Face posted:Be careful - my local paper reported a spectacular pressure cooker mishap. I wanna know what brand it was!
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2012 20:54
|
|
|
 (frozen) chicken and pasta I followed the recipe for this, and it came out awesome. Throw the following into the pot and cook at 40 kpa for 20 minutes: 2 small frozen chicken breasts, right out of the freezer (make sure to pull them apart from each other if they came in the same package) 8 oz. dry spiral pasta (or whatever pasta you want) 20 oz. tomato sauce 4 oz. alfredo sauce chopped garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and onions to taste (I used 4 cloves of garlic, 1/3rd an onion, and just silly with the sun dried tomatoes b/c they are awesome) pepper to taste
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2012 20:00
|
|
|
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't that just overcook the pasta to poo poo? Or is there some magic pressure thing that stops this from happening?
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2012 23:59
|
|
|
I pressure-fried some chicken when I first got my cooker and I guess it fucks with the gaskets so that's the last time I'm doing that. It's unfortunate, that chicken was amazing. I want to try making carnitas, but I've read that they're a little too mushy when done in a pressure cooker. Can I use a little acidity to counter that? VVVVV I guess the term I wanted to use was "lacking a toothiness I get when I cook in the crock pot" still overcooked? Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 06:10 on May 1, 2012 |
|
#
?
May 1, 2012 05:25
|
|
|
Bastard Tetris posted:I pressure-fried some chicken when I first got my cooker and I guess it fucks with the gaskets so that's the last time I'm doing that. It's unfortunate, that chicken was amazing. If they're too mushy, they're being overcooked.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2012 05:31
|
|
|
amishbuttermaster posted:I pressured up some Cuban black beans. Dry to perfectly cooked and tender in under an hour. Not much to look at but, hey, they're beans. This looks excellent, got a recipe? Also, I was under the impression that you still have to soak beans, or else they'll give you debilitating amounts of gas (even though they'll be cooked through properly). Is there any truth to this?
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2012 08:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 13:33 |
|
|
I made a lovely stock in the pressure cooker last night in about an hour, planning on doing a pork roast when it defrosts. Black beans were pretty easy as well -- I adapted a black bean soup recipe, so I sauteed mirepoix + red pepper + jalapeno and then seasoned with cumin, chili powder, red pepper flakes (go easy), and a bit of paprika. Beans, water (stock would prolly be lovely), cook for 30 mins at pressure. I had some extra liquid left over so I reduced it with the top off afterwards. I also soaked for 4 hours.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2012 18:18
|
|