The Complete Book of Pressure Cooking. L.D. Michaels
the cooker off the heat and placing it under cold running water – the so-called rapid cooling method. You can’t do this with an electric cooker; indeed, because many electric pressure cookers have insulated walls in order to keep the food warm and minimize fuel costs, it can take rather a long time after cooking has finished before you can open the cooker to get at the food.
The next downside is that most electric pressure cookers operate at lower pressures than their stove-top siblings – 12 psi is usually the highest you will find (compared with 15 psi for many stove-top cookers) and some are as low as 7 psi. As a result, cooking times are longer.
Then there is the problem of searing. As we will see later, one of the basic techniques of pressure-cooking meats involves searing or briefly frying at high temperature the outside of the piece of meat or chicken. Searing is important both to taste and appearance. In a stove-top cooker you can carry out the searing in the pan itself, pouring out any excess fat or oil when you have achieved sufficient browning. Some electric pressure cookers have a searing feature, but getting rid of the excess fat is still a necessary separate stage if you are to avoid the resulting dish being too greasy.
Three other things to think about: electric pressure cookers are inevitably more complex than stove-top models so that you must anticipate a shorter life. Related to that, the issue of the availability and cost of spares, important enough with stove-top models, is much more important for electric models. Finally, it is quite easy to buy via internet mail order electric pressure cookers that may not readily work on the electricity supply you have in your home. Models sold for the North American market are designed for 110–115 volt supplies, whereas in most of the rest of the world 220–240 volts is the norm. I have not yet come across dual-voltage models. Electric pressure cookers tend to draw a lot of current, which means that, if a step-up-step-down transformer is used, it needs to be very substantial and often the cost of the transformer will exceed the cost of the pressure cooker!
Keep your appliance clean and sweet. Before using it, wash it out with hot soapy water and wash thoroughly after each use. Do not use washing soda, especially with aluminium models, as it reacts chemically with the metal.
Always inspect the escape vent beneath the pressure valve to make sure it has not become clogged. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions about inspecting the sealing gasket and the safety plug periodically.
After cleaning, it is preferable that the appliance should be left to dry or dried with a cloth. Don’t put it away while it is still damp. Store with the lid on upside down. If you store the pressure cooker sealed up, mustiness will occur.
Aluminium care
Aluminium vessels tend to pick up stains from food that is cooked in them. The stains are not harmful, but are unsightly. Periodically, boil up some vinegar or a dilute solution of cream of tartar, lemon juice or other very mild acid with which to remove the stains. From time to time you can use a pan scourer or soap-filled steel-wool pads, but don’t do this too frequently, as you could leave small pits in the metal that will merely collect small fragments of stain all over again. Pits can be smoothed out with wet-and-dry sanding papers.
Stainless steel care
One tip sometimes offered is that, before using for the first time, you season the pan by boiling a dilute milk and water mixture in it for 5 minutes or so. I am not personally convinced that this has any effect; on the other hand, it doesn’t do any harm. Don’t let carbon deposits from gas or open fires accumulate on the outside. Crusted food will normally dissolve if the interior is soaked for several hours in soapy water. For burn marks, use dry bicarbonate of soda rubbed on to the dry pan. Water marks – the minerals in water that has evaporated – can usually be removed by soaking with vinegar. Nylon scouring pads should take care of really persistent stains.
If the cooker has overcooked and has accidentally boiled dry or the safety valve has “blown”, check:
1 the safety valve and replace if necessary.
2 the gasket by filling the appliance with a small amount of water, sealing and watching for escapes of steam along the edges of the lid. Renew the gasket if necessary.
3 the base of the pan. Under extreme conditions of heat, the base of the pan may bulge and distort. In that event, don’t use the pan any further but see if the manufacturer can service it. If the pan has a distorted base, then the food will be heated unevenly and troubles of all sorts will multiply.
EXTRA ITEMS OF EQUIPMENT
Choose from the following:
1 A timer, if you haven’t one already – a pinger or buzzer is best.
2 An extra set of separators.
3 An extra trivet so that you can stack food inside the cooker.
4 A wire basket or pannier.
5 A few boil-proof cups for individual portions of sweets or infant foods.
6 A stainless steel or heat-resistant plastic bowl for cooking large quantities of rice or for using with the trivet but without the lid, as the basis of a double boiler.
7 Boil-proof bowls (plastic or china) for puddings.
8 A casserole dish (make sure it fits inside and can be pulled out again conveniently).
9 Spoons, forks, ladles, sieves and mashers, all with suitably long handles so that you can reach inside the cooker.
10 A fat skimmer for soups, stocks and when simmering meats. There are two main types: special spoons and separator jugs with spouts that operate from the bottom – fat rises to the top and the clear liquid is poured from the bottom; buy the largest you can afford (some have an in-built sieve to capture small fragments of meat, vegetables, etc.)
11 A sieve or mouli for soups and purées.
12 A blender – a good-quality one with a heat-resistant goblet – helps a great deal with instant soups and stocks.
13 A meat thermometer – in general, a very underrated kitchen aid.
4 HOW TO USE YOUR PRESSURE COOKER
Pressure cookers are used in two ways:
1 as a pressure steamer
2 as a pressure poacher / pressure simmerer.
In the first method, the trivet is placed in the base of the pan and the food is laid over it, or in separators. Water placed below the trivet is boiled up under pressure and converted into high-pressure steam. Food and water don’t come in contact with each other. In the second method, the trivet is not used and the food is cooked in the fluid, which may be either water or stock. The fluid moves only gently – hence the references to simmering and poaching – in this book the terms are used interchangeably.
When cooking solids, the appliance should never be more than two-thirds full in order to let the steam percolate and penetrate thoroughly. When cooking with fluids, the appliance should never be more than half full in order to avoid boiling and frothing up that would clog the escape vent on the pressure valve.
In the ordinary course of pressure cooking, you insert the food, close the lid and place the pan over a high heat. After 2–3 minutes there will be a strong sound of steam coming from the escape vent. At this point, all the air will have been evacuated from the appliance and the inside filled with steam at ordinary pressure; the internal temperature will be 100°C (212°F).
You then bring the pressure up either by moving the appropriate lever or by putting on the weights. Your