when I was a kid my stepdad used it as the still to make homemade vodka

Pressure cookers are brilliant for a quick cook

Got a great slow cooker as well, nothing like a slow cooked curry

Bacon ribs in the pressure cooker, a plate full nothing else apart from a cold beer, caveman s..t

I use one a fair bit learnt how off my mother.
Word of advice always check the relief valve is unblocked & safety pressure plug is fitted right .
I'll never forget when mums blow out when I was a kid dinner hit the roof & sprayed everyone in kitchen with super heated casserole . Its funny now but not when we all got burnt .
As nobody could go near we had to wait till it stopped before going in the kitchen .
I remember my mum crying and saying well if you want dinner its on the ceiling.
It was a 12ft ceiling & the pressure was so great it rebounded back down .

actiomax said..
I use one a fair bit learnt how off my mother.
Word of advice always check the relief valve is unblocked & safety pressure plug is fitted right .
I'll never forget when mums blow out when I was a kid dinner hit the roof & sprayed everyone in kitchen with super heated casserole . Its funny now but not when we all got burnt .
As nobody could go near we had to wait till it stopped before going in the kitchen .
I remember my mum crying and saying well if you want dinner its on the ceiling.
It was a 12ft ceiling & the pressure was so great it rebounded back down .

the dark thoughts about the pressure cookers came from my childhood too

mom tried few times to cook a beef stew, but it didn't taste as good as original stew..

then my step dad found another use for it (see my post above)

I use one for work for a couple of beef dishes, it saves time but I don't really like the mmm ??? hard to put my taste buds around it but almost kind of boiled flavour compared to long slow cooked stews etc. I think it's because the higher temp changes the flavours. Some flavours develope over time. Curries the next day for instance. Mind you the customers love it, so its all good in the end.

There was an identical story in my family as well.

The way around it is simple enough, don't overfill it, and check on it every so often that the pressure relief is JUST releasing, and not rattling around like a banshee.

Good luck to those willing to give them a try, they can cut the cooking time for some awesome meals down by 75%,

I'll take a pic next time of the results, and post the time taken.

Might be just coincidence but there is a conversation in the sailing forum - fishing from your boat just today on the value of pressure cookers at sea.

cisco said..

In our experience (wifey and I) pressure and slow cookers tend to destroy flavour.

Might be quick but what is the point if it don't taste good??

That's my memory of them too.

They are brilliant at sea. Cook any dried food such as kidney beans really quickly, use less water, less likely to spill, and cheap as to run. India uses more pressure cookers than any other country.

I bought a Prestige a couple of years back. It's a major improvement on the old ones with the weights on top.

I think that's partly the reason. Economy is probably the biggest.

When you understand that water can only ever be heated to boiling point pressure cookers take on a whole new meaning. The water under pressure is anothe 20C hotter so anything that you are going to cook in boiling water is simply cooked that much quicker. It has pretty big implications for people who are poor or who have problems with cooking fuel.

There's a myriad of other uses for them as well. Not that people really have the time nowadays but they replicate on a micro scale the retorts used in the canning industry so you can effectively produce your own preserved foods in containers.

I first bought one to sterilize growing medium for mushrooms which was psychadelicly effective!

I started using it for cooking dog tucker as well. At the time I was catching a lot of fish. After filleting I would put all the carcasses in the cooker and nuke it. I was astonished not only at how it reduced all the contents to edible mush but the amount of oil that settled on the cooled liquid.

Made the dog smell like a seal and glisten like an otter!

Yeah..... no, its not just hotter the pressure also permeates or something more. How else to explain 20degc saving 2hours. In the oven slow cooked at 140 doesn't equal 3 times faster.

Harrow said..

I've found you can cook for too long with both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker (and also with 'normal' cooking, whatever that is).

Can you please tell my wife that. She will put the slow cooker on at 8 in the morning and leave it until 6 in the evening, then wonder why I reckon it's like baby food. My wife just thinks I'm being critical of her and doesn't believe me you can over cook slow cooked meals