My New Pressure Cooker

I have 2 old aluminum pressure cookers that no longer work. One was my grandmother's from the '40s (wooden handle!). The other was my mother's. I used it once last year, and while cleaning, the neoprene (rubber?) had become brittle and broke. I think I could buy new parts for it, which I might do and give it to one of my kids. However, while rummaging around recently I found a few un-used Sears gift cards I received last Christmas, so I stopped at the mall on the way home from work this week and bought a new 6-Qt. stainless steel Presto. My first adventure was a soup made from instant chicken soup base, brown rice, onions, celery, some frozen mixed vegetables, some leftover 3-bean salad and some cubed beef. Quite tasty. I'll be using it to cook baked beans (my grandfather's recipe) prior to baking for a Labor Day picnic. I believe Bob Ross posted a link to a website a while ago that lists pressure cooker cooking times for dry beans. I printed out all the info and have it in my files. Does anyone else have pressure cooker suggestions?

I like my pressure cookers. Somehow I've wound up with three; the latest is stainless steel.

As I've mentioned a number of times in other threads, I find them useful when I want to hard boil a number of eggs. Only five minutes and they peel beautifully, old or new.

I usually cook an ear or three of corn in them, too. 3 minutes.

And, of course, if you've forgotten to make green chile stew earlier in the day, you can have it in 15-20 minutes.

One bit of advice. Let soups and stews sit for several minutes after pressure cooking to remove any "pressure cooking" flavor.

One bit of advice. Let soups and stews sit for several minutes after pressure cooking to remove any "pressure cooking" flavor.

Well now, THAT is interesting! Care to expound a bit?

[Robin Garr]

I like my pressure cookers.

Okay, because somebody's got to be the food snob, I'll jump in: I've never owned a pressure cooker (or a crock pot) and never felt the need for either. What am I missing out on by being such a twit?

One bit of advice. Let soups and stews sit for several minutes after pressure cooking to remove any "pressure cooking" flavor.

Well now, THAT is interesting! Care to expound a bit?

It's a bit o' advice from my pressure cooking manual. The taste is a very slight metallic flavor that dissipates after sitting for a few minutes. Why? I don't know. But I can tell if something's been nuked, so why not pressure-cooked? Maybe it's analogous to allowing meat to rest to allow juices (and flavor) to equilibrate.

To Robin: speed.

Okay, because somebody's got to be the food snob, I'll jump in: I've never owned a pressure cooker (or a crock pot) and never felt the need for either. What am I missing out on by being such a twit?

For one thing, they cook 2-5 times faster than normal stovetop cooking. This saves not only time but energy (money). The pressure cookers are pressure sealed, thus allowing cooking at much higher temperatures than the 212F boiling point of water and the pressure infuses the liquids into the solid foods much quicker also. Good for stews, soups, chili, etc. Brown rice in 12 minutes instead of 45. Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooker

When I was growning up, my Mom used a pressure cooker to get just about every one of our evening meals on the table. Looking back, I don't quite understood why--she was a homemaker, so it would have been easy to just put something in a pot and braise all day. The thing was noisy and always made me nervous--all of the jiggling, convulsing and hissing, then steering clear of the scaulding steam.

When I went out on my own, my Mom bought one for me. It sat unused until one day I needed to make corned beef in a hurry and remembered how quickly it cooked things. Unfortunately, I packed it too tight. The meat was up against the valve (who knew?) and the thing blew up. I was cleaning shreds of corned beef off the kitchen ceiling for weeks. But worse, it scared the daylights out of me. I sold it in a garage sale, and have never regretted it.

I love pressure cookers and I love slow cookers. They are both excellent tools.

Speed is definitely the huge advantage of pressure cookers, but I also find that they can intensify flavors and meld flavors very well.

I value my slow cooker for two primary things.... long slow cooking without heating up the kitchen, and cooking things that would otherwise need to be hovered over and stirred frequently.

... I've never owned a pressure cooker (or a crock pot) and never felt the need for either. What am I missing out on?

There's a footnote about crock pots, very timely and very high-cuisine. It concerns sous-vide cooking, which you may have experienced -- it's fashionable in Europe and in some high-end US restaurants, including two I know very well. (If anyone has not heard of it, a Google search should shed light.)

Restaurants use laboratory water baths (which regulate water to the right temperature for this slow cooking method, the food sealed in a bag). However, my friendly lab-supply dealer, who vends all sorts of temperature measurement and regulation equipment, pointed out that while he could sell someone a lab water bath for $1000 or more, with features unused in sous-vide, a simpler way was to get a heater that holds water and has the right temperature range, and put a probe in it from a handheld precision closed-loop temperature controller ($90) that controls the power to the heater. He showed me such controllers. This will regulate the water temp. to the same accuracy as special-purpose equipment costing 10 times as much.

The ideal heater unit with water capacity? Crock pot.

The pressure cookers are pressure sealed, thus allowing cooking at much higher temperatures than the 212F boiling point of water and the pressure infuses the liquids into the solid foods much quicker also.

250F, to be exact, at 15lbs pressure--a real advantage at my altitude, where 202F is the boiling temperature of water.

Mishaps with pressure cookers are invariably with old ones and/or by misusing them, e.g., filling them completely with certain things like split peas that will plug their relief valve. Even so, with modern ones and all their safety features, the worst that can happen is that the safety pressure valve will release--no explosion.