Interesting; an UKer telling a Hong Konger what Char Siu is?

Sorry it took so long to respond, we had a power outtage and I lost all my open tabs, took forever to find this thread again. Buffalo, have no idea how long it'd take to cook it. For the lamb shoulder (diced) I probably would have tried 10 minutes on high pressure, using natural release, and then if it was still a little underdone at that point, I would have simmered it for a little while until cooked enough. No idea how long to cook things for the rest of your recipe, just til the pastry is nice and golden brown, however long that takes will depend on recipe and oven temperature.

As for the meat, always be sure to use natural pressure release, and never force it. The high temperatures of the pressure cooker will prompt rather rapid denaturization of the protein in the meat (the protein strands uncoil and break apart into smaller portions) so it softens pretty rapidly, but apparently if you change the internal pressure too rapidly by forcing pressure release the meat can toughen up again. So always let it depressurize without forcing release or using running water.

Best way to cook Beef Rendang (http://rasamalaysia.com/beef-rendang...endang-daging/).
15 mins and you get meat that melts in your mouth...

And if you cant be bothered to get all the ingredients to make the paste, your local Asian Store should have the paste pre-packed.

I wasn't telling you "what it is" - simply that you were wrong to say that pork belly is never used. Does seem odd .... I was suprised to read your post but perhaps you meant something different from what you said and will clear it up. Do you actually cook char siu? :confused:

Chinese certainly do use pork belly as one of several preferred cuts for char siu. Sometimes they use the fillet - but whilst the texture is nice it has less fat so therefore less flavour and the belly gives a much more succulent fatty dish. Chinese aren't as scared of pork fat as us lot!

Anyway I posted some links which shows it is the preferred cut!

:)

Love Rendang. Always keep some Rendang and Massaman paste tubs.

After the ribs .... the next meal is certainly going to be a curry.

See your in Singapore ... I now spend around 6 weeks a year in wonderful Singapore .... improving my "street" food ...

:)

Thanks. I'm making my way ... ;)

It's been a staple of my mother's cooking for years - she was devastated when it broke recently.

She loved being able to get home from work, shove some soup in it and having the soup ready for dinner, but still tasting as good as if she had cooked it for hours.

And it saved a massive amount of time cooking the Christmas Pud every year :D

I don't own one, but I might go for it at some stage. Problem is I never understood how my mother's worked, so I've kind of mentally filed it in the 'too difficult' section. Slightly odd - given the way mum used hers - to see others cooking meat in it :eek: :D

I think they were most popular in the UK post-war. The Prestige with the whistling weights was the one.

For meats and pulses ie dahl?

Some of the Pressure cookers used in India are of larger capacity - pefect for delivering large and complete family meals:

top tier = steaming vegetable
middle tier = rice
bottom tier = dals, lentils, dried peas and beans

so all the three course are cooked in at the same time in single pressure cooker - ready in about 20 minutes plus a few more minutes for finishing!

Mushy rice and veg?

Millions eat rice and vegetables cooked in a pressure cooker. And no, they are NOT mushy!


check out this users's experience where the best tasting rice is cooked out of a pressure cooker, way better than over stove top, or a rice cooker:
http://justhungry.com/pressure-cooker-love

It was only a question.

I posted a link to this very page upstream but your reason to include it is incorrect.
The user is absolutely not saying that the best tasting rice comes from a pressure cooker. She is saying that she happens to prefer the texture of BROWN rice when she cooks it in a pressure cooker, precisely because it becomes more glutinous (mushy) that way.
Not the best example to come up with to fight your not-necessarily-mushy-vegetables argument - not that I need to be convinced, I know very well that a pressure cooker can make vegetables perfectly. Mmmmm, nearly pumpkin season!

Considering how pressure cookers have been used in Spain for the last few decades it seems entirely logical to me how much of the world uses these. Thanks to everyone who has been answering the "does anyone else use a pressure cooker" question. Very interesting to me and not hugely surprising that the answer seems to be that at least half the world does (or would very much like to if they could afford one).

I wonder if Korean rice cookers come under the pressure cooker category?
They are supposed to be different from the conventional Japanese rice cookers because of the preference for rice cooked this way.

Really interesting!

It's the pork ribs tomorrow. Unless coached otherwise, I plan to pressure cook the ribs in my version of an unthickened terryaki type sauce for around 20 to 25 minutes so to hopefully infuse / penetrate some of the flavour into the ribs. I then plan to thicken the sauce and cover the ribs and bake until sticky.

Rice will be courtesy of Mr Zoji!

I love my pressure cooker. It makes cooking large cuts of meat (i.e. roasts) really quick and easy. The secret is to let it cool down naturally or the meat will seize up and be really dry and tough.

My most recent dish in it is beef tongue in a sake-soy-ginger type broth. Then reduced the leftover broth from cooking the tongue into a glaze with caramelized onions and julienned sweet peppers.

It's one of the most used pieces of cookware I have in my kitchen. I par-cook ribs, trotters, ear and makes lots of lentil and beans.

"Mushy" vegetables may be the result of overcooking, but with certain vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, etc., you can help keep them "firm" by adding a small amount of vinegar to the cooking water. Vinegar actually reinforces the pectin in the cell walls of certain vegetables.

I find lemon or lime juice is more versatile when cooking vegetables. I do use vinegar occasionally, but that's only when I specifically want to add a vinegar taste. A drop of mirin and sake (together with a tiny little bit of lemon juice and grated rind which I add for flavour) as well as some dashi are fantastic for kabocha pumpkins.

The website may help you in some degrees.

Actually having a pressure cooker stoved in the cellar. It was a gift in the past, never used. Might consider using it after some tips in this thread...
:)

I haven't used mine since I bought it ...... and posted in October ...

There is no substitute for very slow cooking .....

:)

I've used pressure cookers for the 1st time in my life. Seems to be an item any French vacation rental is outfitted with (of course, not the current and 6th one I'm staying in).

Not too bad for making soups but not that great for braising with wine. The alcohol doesn't evaporate so when you open it, you get an overpowering smell of alcohol.

Oh I used to have mine stoved in the cellar too- it was too big and I didn't like it but recently I've bought smth like multi cooker Redmond M 4502 and I've fallen in love with it. it's got more functions than an ordinary PC. I make yoghurt, bake, stew, fry,steam and use MULTICOOK mode to set the temperature by myself)))

Absolutely love mine for making stews, after I got over the initial fear of using it.

My MIL used to come home from work and get a dinner on the table for her husband and 5 kids ASAP. She always cooked the vegetables in a pressure cooker to expediency's sake.

I got one as a wedding gift in 1976. I don't recall doing anything fancy with it but if you needed to cook something fast and didn't care it it was overcooked, it was the way to go. I abandoned it after we got our first microwave oven.

I can still hear the sound it made when you cooled it rapidly under running cold water.

Cooking vegetables in a pressure cooker. :confused:

That certainly is expedient.

Reminds me of my favourite saying when someone reckons they're stressed and under pressure - " pressure is for tyres,cookers and blow-up women. "

Speaking of which, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev just had his trial postponed 2 months.

I fondly remember my Dad managing to explode our pressure cooker (this would have been some time in the 80s) and melting the Formica worksurface. It still proudly bore bubbles after this incident as we moved out of the house.

When we moved to France in the mid-80s, we discovered Moroccan food, well before it reached the UK. In particular, couscous. It was always a dish in its own right - not a general accompanying carb - and always had a particular lamb or mutton stew with it. My Mum got some recipes before we left France and managed to make incredible mutton stews and broths in the pressure cooker, whether Moroccan or Scottish. So, very fond memories.

But I don't use one. I don't really eat that much meat these days, and everything else can be cooked much more quickly (or left to marinate relatively easily).

^, I love Rendang. Pressure cooker make it much easier.