Does anyone else use a pressure cooker?
 

I have just bought a pressure cooker. Does anyone else use one? I bought it for winter!

Don't try to bring it as a carry-on, or checked luggage.

I haven't used one for years, but as a teenager, cooked stews, pinto beans, and the like in them.

Tee hee!

I plan to cook proper puddings ie with suet pastry and thought this was the way to go. The first is going to be a lamb and veg pudding ie a sort of Irish Stew in suet. I can't decide whether to cook the stew first and then put it into the suet pastry when cool or put the meat and veg in raw! Decisions, decisions!

My wife donated ours to a fundraiser when I wasn't looking:mad:.

Really though, the only things I used it for were beans and artichokes. Dry unsoaked pinto beans ready to mash into refried in 90 minutes and jumbo artichokes done in 7-8 minutes instead of an hour.^

I have two electric pressure cookers, and needless to say, I love them! But don't just save it for winter, its also good for making dinner on hot summer days when you don't want a lot of heat added to the kitchen -- I use mine to make corn on the cob, cook frozen hot dogs, make hardboiled eggs in the morning, anything where I want to cook, but don't want to add a lot of heat into the kitchen (because I'm using a contained unit with so little hot water / steam involved, it keeps the kitchen much cooler than it would otherwise be).

Pressure Cooker
 

Use it for ribs! Pressure cook them for about 20 minutes and then grill them on the bbq. They become super tender and the meat falls off the bone

My sister does that, too. Makes the meat really tender...

See also http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/dinin...light=pressure

I mostly use it to make free stock every week.

I get a box of vegetables delivered weekly from Riverford. Part of their minimal packaging policy is to let the vegetables keep the natural "wrapping" that supermarkets trim off so that more of the vegetables will fit neatly on their shelves.

Others might throw these extra leaves away but I scrub them, add some dried mushrooms and herbs, and put them in the pressure cooker, bring to the boil and then simmer at the very lowest gas setting for 45 minutes.
Once the cooked vegetables (except those shiitake mushrooms which I slow braise with soy sauce) are squeezed dry they go into the compost bin, nice and compact. The resulting stock is perfect for making quick and delicious soups; ideal for someone who makes bread.

Pressure cooker is great for beans (another great accompaniament for good bread) . As well as making hummus, there are a ton of typical Spanish dishes (such as Olla Gitana) that can be cooked in the pressure cooker. Pressure cooking is extremely popular in Spain, mine came from there and was a wedding present to my parents back when Franco was still running the country. So long as the rubber gasket is changed periodically I have no reason to doubt that my own daughter will use it.

Nice article with more information and suggestions here:
http://justhungry.com/pressure-cooker-love

I'd personally be very interested in learning which other countries besides Spain have a high usage of pressure cookers in people's homes. It's not an obvious question and requires a fair amount of local knowledge. From the cuisine, I would have thought South Korea would be a contender (and I am sure they are worth their considerable weight in gold in North Korean cities where energy for cooking can't be depended on - for similar reasons I've considered taking the pressure cooker out camping)

They're fairly common in French households.

^ Makes sense.... Mmmmm, lentilles

Interesting to see other users!

What do you think?

I'm going to make suet pastry, line a pie bowl - but do I put the meat and veg in raw or do I pre-cook the mix and then put it in cold?

Thanks.

To clarify - you mean to make the bread with the stock or eat with it ie soup?

I would definitely NOT put raw meat and veg in the pastry, they release a lot of water as they cook, and could turn your pastry to mush. At a minimum, I would cook the meat (minimally) and par-boil the vegetables.

Many thanks. Should I basically make the complete lamb stew first, and then when cool put it in the suet - or must i just part cook it?

Thanks!

.... can I also bounce another idea of FT'ers?

I experiment a lot!

I'm thinking of making my first meat pudding in the following way.

I'm thinking of doing a sort of mild Lamb and Sweet Potato Curry (may substitute carrot to preserve a bit of bite as the sweet potato will mush ....) with some coconut milk and sugar - and then put that cooked mix fairly dry into a suet pastry that I made in the normal way but also have mixed some slowly braised and caramelised red onion in with. So a sort of mild lamb curry in a caramelised red onion suet pudding crust.

I don't know whether anyone else can picture and taste this but the idea seems to work in my head. Any views appreciated.

Love mine, I make chicken stock, soup etc etc... but don't cook veggies in it since I like my vegetables el dente.