Pressure Cookers - who has them? - Who uses them? - what do you cook in them?

Never cooked in ours, but I may start now . We have large and use for canning.

Last night I cooked some potatoes and riced them to serve them with some broccoli and cheese stuffed chicken breasts (store bought).

dpm802 said:

I have some frozen chicken thighs with Jamaican Jerk seasoning. Net weight on each is a little under half a pound.

I've got five of these, but I was going to cook one in the PC tomorrow to experiment. I'm going to put it in the pot still frozen, along with some potatoes, sitting on a steamer basket.

The first time I cooked these, just followed the directions on the package that say to sear both sides in a skillet and then roast it in the oven ... but that method seems time-consuming, labor intensive, and requires clean-up of a lot of cookware. So I thought I'd try cooking them under pressure this time.

how long do you think I should keep it under pressure. Since its starting from frozen, I'm thinking 20 minutes. More? Less? Or do you think that will be too long to cook the potatoes, and I should do them separately?

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Well, my experiment didn't turn out too well.

I put the frozen chicken in with some potatoes, boiled it up to pressure and then turned the heat off.

I let it sit for 15 minutes until the pressure went down on its own, and I opened the pot. The potatoes were over-cooked, soft and mushy. I should have just mashed them, but I took them out in their rustic cut form, seasoned them up and ate them.

The chicken was under-cooked. It was still pink and bloody inside, so I put it back in for another 15 minutes while I noshed on the potatoes.

After another 15 minutes, I checked on the chicken. It was now overcooked, the meat looked gray. I tried one bite and it was tough and rubbery, so I threw it out. I'm glad I only experimented with one piece, so there was only about 85cents gone to waste.

I still have four pieces of chicken left in the freezer. In the future, I think I'll go back to the searing and roasting like they recommend on the label.

Havnt used one in a while , have one from the 40's still holds pressure. After cooking a boiled dinner we take the broth, bag of split peas pressure cook it to make the soup, the take left over , carrots, potatoes, cabbage and ham and toss it in the soup for an elderly relative, put in whipped cream tubs and froze them and he used them up as needed. Never lasted long..
Used to pressure cook veggies , but stopped doing that as well. But it works good if you have a garden and large family.

Pressure cookers are great but like most tools you've got to apply to the right jobs only. Obviously you can use them for a load of stuff but you're better off finding where they really shine and using more traditional techniques with other foods/recipes where the pressure cooker either overly complicates or adds no significant value.

They're a dream with stocks - and a good stock will open the door on SOOOOOOOO many good dishes. I read a tip (which I thought was stupid at first) - but keep all the reasonable sized bones from your meals in a plastic bag in the freezer. When it's got a decent load in it toss it with a few other things e.g carrot, onion, bay leaves into the pressure cooker with a few litres of water. All the caramelised meat on the bones etc will leave you with a fantastic stock in 30mins or so.

Modern ones are VERY, VERY safe unless you're daft and ignore the multiple warnings, guidelines in the instructions about overfilling etc - even then they tend to have multiple features built in to avoid a major incident. Very scary the amount of power etc in them.

dpm802 said:

Well, my experiment didn't turn out too well.

I put the frozen chicken in with some potatoes, boiled it up to pressure and then turned the heat off.

I let it sit for 15 minutes until the pressure went down on its own, and I opened the pot. The potatoes were over-cooked, soft and mushy. I should have just mashed them, but I took them out in their rustic cut form, seasoned them up and ate them.

The chicken was under-cooked. It was still pink and bloody inside, so I put it back in for another 15 minutes while I noshed on the potatoes.

After another 15 minutes, I checked on the chicken. It was now overcooked, the meat looked gray. I tried one bite and it was tough and rubbery, so I threw it out. I'm glad I only experimented with one piece, so there was only about 85cents gone to waste.

I still have four pieces of chicken left in the freezer. In the future, I think I'll go back to the searing and roasting like they recommend on the label.

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Five minutes in a pressure cooker is equivalent to longer times, perhaps 15-20 minutes of alternative regular pressure cooking methods. As I am sometimes cooking foods that are a different weight than the recipe I'm following, I guestimate the cooking time and sometimes add another few minutes under pressure if it's not completely cooked. Pressure comes up a lot quicker for those subsequent pressured cooking.

Here's a better explanation: http://missvickie.com/howto/cooking101/phased.html

Regarding cooking multiple foods in a pressure cooker that require different cooking times, traditionally one would start with the item that had the longest cooking time, subtract the time for additional items and do a quick pressure release to open the pot and add the quicker cooking item(s). This can be done multiple times and again, pressure comes up quickly for subsequent pressurizations.

My InstaPot Duo-60 arrived today!

I have been following this thread for awhile and it convinced me to give pressure cooking a try. The InstaPot works as a slow cooker as well, so this s/b a win-win

we got this one and use it for canning out of the garden.
http://www.amazon.com/All-American®...&sr=8-6&keywords=pressure+canners+for+canning

For us it was one of things that sounded great, worked well the few times we used it and sits somewhere in the basement waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the next use. Our DIL uses one to cook dried beans.

gdgeorge said:

I've got two Mirro pressure cookers, a 6 quart and a 22 quart. These things get a bad rap because they still use a weight to control the pressure rather than a dial, but I've been using both of these for over 15 years. I cook and can in both of them. My family likes potted meat (chicken and beef) but I absolutely hate the expense, so I make my own. I also can soups and when we fund great sales, fruits and veggies (although they typically don't require the pressure canner.

BTW, the stories about lids blowing off and explosions tend to be of the "I heard from someone who knows someone..." variety. Even the Mirros that I use have multiple / redundant safety features that make over-pressure situations pretty hard to achieve.

Cheers,
Jerry

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Mom uses hers to can fruit and veggies and to break down tough old Roosters , Squirrels and Rabbits . She would put the meat in salted water and cook for 15-20 minutes then remove pat dry and bread and fry like chicken.

I use one alot. I have Fagors and a couple Presto's and a few others. I use one often for beans, stews. I have a 22 qt that I use to can garden veggies.
I almost forgot, I have an Bon Appetite electric pressure cooker that's awesome.