Just got a new pressure cooker. Need recipes.
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DeathGrip
US Veteran
My wife used to make a great Roast in ours.
I'm sure the web is full of sites to get you going. Plus I almost always see recipe books for them at the checkout line.
I'm sure the web is full of sites to get you going. Plus I almost always see recipe books for them at the checkout line.
chaparrito
Member
Is it a stovetop unit or did you get the programmable electric one? I've had a Cuisinart programmable cooker for 6 years and love it. It gets used 2-3 times a week.
If you got the automatic one:
I don't do recipes with numbers and stuff. Get a nice chuck roast that will fit. Season it as you like and brown it on all sides good a proper. Coarse chop a big onion and add it on top along with some halved carrots and celery stalks. Pour a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes on top and then add one 12 ounce good dark beer or an equivalent amount of beef or vegetable broth.
Cook on high pressure for 40 minutes or so. Pot roast!
You can do the same thing with pork shoulder and then pull it with two forks. When I do pulled pork I usually take it out of the cooker and pull it apart in a baking pan and stick it under the broiler a while to crisp up the edges.
White bean and kale soup:
Brown a sweet onion, celery tops including the leaves and some coarse chopped celery and carrots in three cut up slices of bacon. Add a pound of Great Northern beans, 8 cups of good broth and two cups of finely chopped kale or spinach. Diced tomatoes are optional.
Cook on high pressure about 45 minutes. Sometimes I take the results and buzz it all into a thick soup with my stick blender but sometimes not.
If you did get the Cuisinart cooker, there is an aftermarket stainless steel pot that will fit it on Amazon. That no-stick stuff will scratch and isn't healthy. The stainless pot has a really heavy triple ply bottom and was worth the 30 bucks I paid for it.
If you got the automatic one:
I don't do recipes with numbers and stuff. Get a nice chuck roast that will fit. Season it as you like and brown it on all sides good a proper. Coarse chop a big onion and add it on top along with some halved carrots and celery stalks. Pour a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes on top and then add one 12 ounce good dark beer or an equivalent amount of beef or vegetable broth.
Cook on high pressure for 40 minutes or so. Pot roast!
You can do the same thing with pork shoulder and then pull it with two forks. When I do pulled pork I usually take it out of the cooker and pull it apart in a baking pan and stick it under the broiler a while to crisp up the edges.
White bean and kale soup:
Brown a sweet onion, celery tops including the leaves and some coarse chopped celery and carrots in three cut up slices of bacon. Add a pound of Great Northern beans, 8 cups of good broth and two cups of finely chopped kale or spinach. Diced tomatoes are optional.
Cook on high pressure about 45 minutes. Sometimes I take the results and buzz it all into a thick soup with my stick blender but sometimes not.
If you did get the Cuisinart cooker, there is an aftermarket stainless steel pot that will fit it on Amazon. That no-stick stuff will scratch and isn't healthy. The stainless pot has a really heavy triple ply bottom and was worth the 30 bucks I paid for it.
I blew one up by accident once.
In the early 80's I ordered a psilocybin mushroom growing kit from the back of a High Times magazine. The instructions included sterilizing the agar double boiler style in a pressure cooker, pouring the sterilized liquid in petri dishes, moving to a an enclosed glove box, and allowing to cool before before adding mushroom spores.
In my excitement at doing this scientific operation, I failed to put any liquid into the bottom of the pressure cooker - in the pressure cooker, I only put in the smaller pan with the goop that I was supposed to sterilize.
So you know how when you use a pressure cooker, it's been on the heat for a while and the little weight on top is supposed to bounce around and steam and sizzle? Well mine wasn't. So imagine me, still sporting my late 70's long hair, flannel shirt, standing there in front the stove waiting impatiently.
I finally raised up my hand to flick the round weight to get it sizzling and that's when the relief plug in the lid blew. A very loud sound, I practically jumped out of my skin, the metal plug missed my arm by inches, there was a strong geyser from the liquid in the inner container spewing hard out of the relief hole and hitting the ceiling with force. This hot brown liquid was raining down on me and the plug that blew was embedded in the apartment ceiling like a slug from a gun. My girlfriend at the time (wife now) was on the floor laughing the whole time I was cleaning up.
This is your brain on drugs.
But anyway.... before I ruined our pressure cooker, we sometimes cooked dried northern beans.
In the early 80's I ordered a psilocybin mushroom growing kit from the back of a High Times magazine. The instructions included sterilizing the agar double boiler style in a pressure cooker, pouring the sterilized liquid in petri dishes, moving to a an enclosed glove box, and allowing to cool before before adding mushroom spores.
In my excitement at doing this scientific operation, I failed to put any liquid into the bottom of the pressure cooker - in the pressure cooker, I only put in the smaller pan with the goop that I was supposed to sterilize.
So you know how when you use a pressure cooker, it's been on the heat for a while and the little weight on top is supposed to bounce around and steam and sizzle? Well mine wasn't. So imagine me, still sporting my late 70's long hair, flannel shirt, standing there in front the stove waiting impatiently.
I finally raised up my hand to flick the round weight to get it sizzling and that's when the relief plug in the lid blew. A very loud sound, I practically jumped out of my skin, the metal plug missed my arm by inches, there was a strong geyser from the liquid in the inner container spewing hard out of the relief hole and hitting the ceiling with force. This hot brown liquid was raining down on me and the plug that blew was embedded in the apartment ceiling like a slug from a gun. My girlfriend at the time (wife now) was on the floor laughing the whole time I was cleaning up.
This is your brain on drugs.
But anyway.... before I ruined our pressure cooker, we sometimes cooked dried northern beans.
chaparrito
Member
Hilarious story!
My mom used to love to tell the story of when, back in the late 40's she left a pressure canner full of jarred tomatoes on too high a flame while she went next door to chat with a neighbor.
The canner blew and spewed tomatoes all over the kitchen through the relief hole. My dad came home and thought she'd been murdered.
I won't use a stovetop unit ever again. The new programmable ones are extremely safe and don't require a hard to regulate external heat source. Mine shuts itself off, depressurizes and will hold the contents automatically at serving temperature for 12 hours. I do meats and such but mine is used 90% for beans. I eat beans for breakfast 4-5 days a week and don't like to not have a cooked pot of them in the fridge.
My mom used to love to tell the story of when, back in the late 40's she left a pressure canner full of jarred tomatoes on too high a flame while she went next door to chat with a neighbor.
The canner blew and spewed tomatoes all over the kitchen through the relief hole. My dad came home and thought she'd been murdered.
I won't use a stovetop unit ever again. The new programmable ones are extremely safe and don't require a hard to regulate external heat source. Mine shuts itself off, depressurizes and will hold the contents automatically at serving temperature for 12 hours. I do meats and such but mine is used 90% for beans. I eat beans for breakfast 4-5 days a week and don't like to not have a cooked pot of them in the fridge.
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They are great for dried beans, cook in half the time of the pre soak or pre cook and let sit method,
Never add salt to the beans until done. Salt stops the softening of beans!
And yes, you need to keep some liquid in them at all times.
Make homemade baked beans in it and you will never buy those disgusting canned ones again!!
Never add salt to the beans until done. Salt stops the softening of beans!
And yes, you need to keep some liquid in them at all times.
Make homemade baked beans in it and you will never buy those disgusting canned ones again!!
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shaggist
US Veteran
Go to a book store, online or brick and mortar, and buy one or more pressure cooker cook books. You will have all the recipes you will ever need.
When I was growing up, my Mom used the pressure cooker for just about every meal. I have told my wife that if she brings a pressure cooker into our house, that is grounds for a divorce! So far it has been good - no pressure cooked meals.
mrrick
Member
Pressure cookers are popular in poor countries where fuel is expensive or difficult to find. Also popular in high altitudes where boiling point is lower so food takes longer to cook. I used them in Peru, 14,000 ft, Nepal 16,000 ft and White Mountains, AZ, 8000 ft. Also necessary to boil water to drink in 3rd world "dirty" water countries, India, Afghanistan to name a couple. Used them to sterilize surgical instruments as well, poor man's autoclave when electricity is not available.
I cook meat using red or white wine instead of beer, but beer sounds good too. Onions, garlic, "herbs de provence", sometimes just a hint of curry powder makes meat dishes easy and tasty.
I cook meat using red or white wine instead of beer, but beer sounds good too. Onions, garlic, "herbs de provence", sometimes just a hint of curry powder makes meat dishes easy and tasty.
chaparrito
Member
I had an aunt that cooked everything in a pressure cooker, she was the worlds worst cook.
Her fault, not the cooker's. I have a pal who just bought a cooker like mine and he's now using it for everything. "It cooks green beans to perfection in 4 minutes!!!". Yeah, after a 10 minute warm up and a 1 minute depressurization. Fail. You can't use them for everything. Mine gets a heavy workout making pulled pork, pot roast, beans and soups that taste like they simmered all day. I make all my vegetable, beef and chicken stocks in it as well. No more hours long stock pot watching.
kthom
Member
chaparrito, I well remember those big heavy canning cookers. We had 'em on the stove two at a time in season when I was growing up. My mom would have me come and lift them off and on the stove when I got big enough. Those suckers were heavy! She was religious about watching them for pressure though. Never had a wreck, but did have a few times somebody had to go to town to get a new set of gaskets and/or a new pop off valve because the old ones were worn out and wouldn't seal properly. Mom also used a 6 quart presto to cook our dry pinto beans, and we nearly always had them on tap in the fridge. I love pintos at any meal. My wife still shakes her head when I eat them for breakfast. Good as they are anytime, I believe I like them the very best at breakfast.
We've still use a couple of the old time Presto's, a 4 and a 6 quart size, but I'm really curious now about the type you describe. I'd appreciate a bit more information, maybe a link to read about yours if you have one. It sure sounds handy and safe. A girl friend of mine was new to pressure cookers many years ago. I came over to her house and she was cleaning her kitchen after blowing up her cooker. She had filled the cooker too full of beans and water and some bean stuff had stopped up the pressure weight hole. Bean stuff was ALL OVER her kitchen ... ceilings, walls, floor, and I think even inside some cabinets. I don't think she has ever used one since. She was out of the kitchen when it blew but I think when it happened, she must have lost control of her bladder! She was NOT a happy camper! Like most good things, to use them safely, one has to follow the rules.
My wife also cooks whole chickens sitting on the rack that fits in the bottom of the cooker. She seasons the bird, stuffs it full of celery, carrots and onion, puts it in the 6 quart cooker along with sufficient chicken broth and the results are really pretty good, even for chicken! Of course, the chicken is better with some pinto beans for a side dish!!
