[humble_pie]

"It's a Useful Pot," said Pooh. "Here it is. And it's got 'A Very Happy Birthday with love from Pooh' written on it. That's what all that writing is. And it's for cooking things in!"

When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited ... Eeyore picked Piglet's chili pepper up with his teeth and placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; and then picked it up again and put it carefully back.

"I'm very glad," said Pooh happily, "that I thought of giving you a Useful Pot to cook things in."

"And I'm very glad," said Piglet happily, "that I thought of giving you a chili pepper to cook in a Useful Pot."

But Eeyore wasn't listening. He was taking the chili pepper out and putting it back in again while figuring out the cooking controls, and he was as happy as could be.

.

 

[humble_pie]

I had my first IP disaster last night when I attempted to make rice & chicken together. The rice turned into a goopy mess, absorbing all the water, and there wasn't enough steam created to pressurize the IP. I couldn't get the IP to pressurize and lock... it requires a certain amount of boiling activity for this to happen. Either the recipe I used was bad (not appropriate for the IP) or the kind of rice I used didn't cooperate.

good cooks usually tell their students to advance beyond recipe stage ...

different kinds of rice need regular cooking time periods from instant to 45 minutes plus different amounts of water, they'd all react differently in a pressure cooker

 

[humble_pie]

just in time for the Xmas/new year holidays: quite possibly the most inspiring business story of the entire year. It's a great way to offset some of the 2018 horror stories.

inventor Robert Wang tells ottawa citizen journos how he built the Instant Pot to help with healthy dinner prep in his own family life, as he & his wife both held down demanding career jobs with long hours while raising two young children.

what the couple needed was "an intelligent cooking machine," says Wang, a computer scientist who worked in artificial intelligence.

the result was the now-famous Instant Pot, soon to become a bestseller all over canada & the US. Wang now intends to re-invent most kitchen appliances. He's just introduced a blender that cooks! (and why not, when you think about it)


https://ottawacitizen.com/business/...s/the-ottawa-inventor-behind-instant-pot-is-coming-for-the-rest-of-your-kitchen

 

[humble_pie]

Made some beef barley soup in the crock pot today. Browned a pound of stew beef in some olive oil with flour, tossed it in the pot with a packet of onion soup mix and 6 cups of water, and 2 cups of pot barley. Let it cook for 2 hours and added 6 stalks of celery and 6 carrots, chopped. Let it cook for 2 more hours and had a thick stew like dish which is what I wanted. Mix it 50/50 with hot water for a great bowl of soup, without the barley turning to mush. it didn't seem flavorful enough when diluted so I dissolved a couple of beef stock cubes in a cup of hot water and stirred them into the pot. Now it is just about perfect.

Never made this soup before, made up the recipe and am pleased the way it turned out.

your recipe is cornerstone traditional though. Probably based on your good cooking knowledge & experience. The last thing cooks need for dishes like the above are measured ingredients & strict timing.

what i'm wondering is how the full flavour of a dish like this one ^^ might compare to an instant pot recipe? IP does have meat-browning capabilities but Plugging said IP is a bit weak with these. Yet the flavour of many meat dishes absolutely depends on slow-toasting those fatty molecules to their golden crisps.

 

[humble_pie]

If you think cooking is all chemistry, just try baking!
For example, soda bread utilizes the Henderson Hasselbach reaction to turn sodium bicarbonate (Baking Soda) and buttermilk (acid) into carbon dioxide (gas) and water (steam). Ergo, the bread rises! But only if you get the proportions right.
If you want to become a consistently good baker, you have to weigh dry ingredients. Volume measurements are simply too subject to variation depending on how densely they are packed.

lol that explains it!

me i am an outlaw cook. A handful of this, what looks like a cuppa that (measured by eye only). Generous pinches of dried green herbs & spices. Sprigs of rosemary everywhere, even in dessert breads. Baking powder, baking soda, milk, cream, lemon juice, splash of vinegar, it's all the same to me.

i'm happy with whatever happens. Some thrown-together-no-recipe breads & muffins do rise better than others, though

 

[humble_pie]

It's all chemistry. I think that is the aspect of cooking I find most interesting.

no, it's all love. cooking is very touchy feely. but then, they say that love is all chemistry

in cooking, as in love, little things like altitude & season of the year can mean a lot

.

 

[humble_pie]

First recipe: Baby potatoes and carrots, to go along with some leftover roast beef from last weekend.

Disaster. Put the potatoes in first (1.5lbs) with a cup of water, both fridge-cold. It took 15 minutes to get up to full temp, then the pressure cooker timer on for 6 minutes. Peeled the carrots during this time. After 6 minutes I vented the steam and opened. The potatoes were almost done. Put in the carrots and represurized (only 5 minutes this time) and cooked for 4 more minutes.

The potatoes were over-done and the carrots way underdone. Then I threw them in a pan with garlic, oil, sugar, and S&P and steamed another 5+ minutes to get the carrots reasonably soft. Overall the whole thing took 45 minutes, marginally quicker than the "boil then sautee" method overall.

Next time I'm going to have to cook them all together and avoid a mid-cook venting. But I'll have to get the potatoes hot first. I think I'll do this by:

-Wash the potatoes in the IP sleeve in the sink, letting the potatoes and IP heat up for 5 minutes under scalding hot tap water.
-Peel and chop the carrots while the potatoes and IP are sitting in the hot water
-Drain potatoes
-Add carrots to IP and 1-2 cups scalding hot tap water
-Pressure cook for ~7 minutes
-Sautee in hot pan for 2-3 minutes with oil, garlic, butter, salt, etc.

wow, all this just for some carrots & baby potatoes?

could have done in one ordinary stove-top pot in 20-25 mins. Carrots go in first they take longer (i think McCain Inc out of new brunswick may have genetically tenderized all canadian potatoes). Baby potatoes next, maybe 4-8 mins later depending on how finely the carrots were chopped.

dish could benefit from a cut-up onion, smashed cloves of garlic, couple sticks celery, a bay leaf. These go in at the beginning w the carrots.

only one pot to wash. None of this transferring around for partial cooking in other pots, pans, sleeves & fryers.

(signed)
19th century
simpleminded
tartelette

 

[humble_pie]

Plugging i'm with you re cook-as-u-go but i have to say that, although i can serve a meal with pride to guests any day of the year, such meal will never, not ever, include any home-baked item from this outlaw's oven

all my primitive no-recipe pastries get fed only to the long-suffering family

for guests i only have one dessert. Rich dark chocolate mousse made with far too much single-plantation chocolate, egg yolks, cream, madagascar vanilla & served in demi-tasse w whipped cream. No formal recipe.

occasionally i alternate w crème bruléee. Also no recipe. At christmastime i buy plum puddings. Thanksgiving i buy pumpkin pie. Spring & summer i'm all for strawberry, raspberry, blackberry & fruit tartes from favourite patisserie.

 

[humble_pie]

Made mushroom and scallop risotto tonight. Fridge to plate in about 35 minutes! Still, after sauteeing the onions and rice, and adding 1.5L of hot broth, it took 15 full minutes on high to get up to pressure and the 5 minute counter to begin. I wish the burner was stronger to get it up to full heat faster.

i could do mushroom & scallop risotto frig to plate in 30 mins regular pot + cast iron frying pan to sear mushrooms & scallops in butter. No instant pot necessary.

why would anyone want to cook mushrooms & scallops under pressure? both are already delicate enough that they can & should be pan-sauteed only a few minutes. Cook needs to physically see & watch over the cooking progress of these 2 ingredients second by second. See as in view with one's own eyes. Watch over as in stir during the procedure. Timing is important.

over-cooking blindfolded in pressure cooker for at least 20 minutes (plus de-pressurization time) seems like an undesirable procedure to me


globe had an article recently with a headline along the lines of How Come Nobody Knows How To Cook Anymore. But peterk is already too good a cook to fall into the know-nothing category, i would have thought

 

[humble_pie]

no you cannot cook risotto in a regular pot in 30 minutes. I dare you to show anyone how that could possibly be done...

classic risotto is made with special short grain rice. The kernels have extra starch packed into the epithelial layers. A cook needs to repeatedly add small quantities of hot stock to the simmering rice while stirring briskly, no? it's the agitation of the constant stirring that liberates the starch from the cells. Stirring process takes roughly 15 minutes. The dissolved starch is what gives a risotto its signature creaminess.

i don't see how the above procedure is possible in an Instant Pot because there's no interaction with the food while it's cooking. What one would get with an IP is boiled rice, not risotto. it's true that arborio or other special short grain rice would liberate some starch during cooking in an IP, but nothing like the creamy quantity that comes from prolonged & vigourous hand stirring while adding tablespoons of stock.

so when you said IP risotto, my takeaway was that it was plain boiled rice. One can certainly prepare a boiled rice, mushroom & scallops dish in a regular heavy pot in less than 30 minutes. Using a risotto rice will even permit some of the classic creaminess to appear.

 

[humble_pie]

^^ actually i think that your cooking skills are a very appealing part of your character

after you're married & have kids & all, the social life will expand of its own accord. You'll see. There'll be occasions aplenty where you'll be able to stun w a special dish or even an entire meal. Don't let those skills turn rusty!

 

[humble_pie]

This thing is friggen awesome for soup stocks!

Chicken carcass, bay leaf, pinch of salt, 1.5hrs and natural release, produces clear deep yellow stock with a thin film of fat on top. Perfect. My in-pot recipe is inferior, and I always had problems getting the simmer right and the stock to come out clear. Once refrigerated it is thick like jello as well.

Beef stock took 3hrs, and again produced nice brown clear liquid which jello-ified in the fridge. Extracting the collage/gelatin from large beef bones (Prime rib) on the stove took me 12+ of simmering at a bare minimum - once I cooked beef stock for 48hrs and it was not as good as the Instant Pot.

soup stock that gels might be the zone that will persuade me in the end

i've never been able to put up with simmering bones more than 4-5 hours. Sometimes the resulting stock gels sometimes it doesn't

ps not sure how that verb is spelled but luckily cooks don't need to know how to spell, only how to gel

.

 

[humble_pie]

I have no idea what is going on in that pot that it is not agitating the chicken bits into oblivion, like boiling does (that's why we simmer). It seems to me that the only conclusion that I can draw is that the IP is holding the pressure and temp at precisely the right place so that the fluid is at high temperature (due to high vapour pressured of the sealed pot), but is not infact boiling or moving the parts of food around the pot at all, as I was envisioning. In hindsight, this makes sense, as the IP needs to prevent excess steam buildup and over pressuring, lest it explodes.

For reference, after draining out the clear broth I picked up one of the chicken leg bones, and it crushed easily between my fingers - a good sign that the stock is fully and completely "done".

love this explanation

there are too many cook books around but if there were less competition i could see so much marketing room for An Engineer Cooks

needs a catchy title of course but the thumb-nail description goes something like What Happens when Heat is Applied to the Atoms and Molecules inside your Pots and Pans

 

[humble_pie]

^^ yea engineers in the kitchen are a riot except i believe peterk is a real cook & a talented one, i can even smell the aromas of his dishes from faraway eastern canada ... just like your own recipes & dishes i should add

PS iirc Rusty's pretty good in the kitchen too. We'd be awesome cooking together in a gang except our differing politics would turn the kitchen into a deadly nuclear chain reaction


EDIT: thankx for the Light Bulb aha so it's the pressure that forces out the tasty marrow & inner bone molecules whereas conventional simmering can require 4-15 hours to do the same. I imagine the variation in conventional simmer time has to do with the bone density of the original creature.

 

[humble_pie]

Well, I think its jellified, jello is the 'that' brand =)

Plus it couldn't be, "jellified" is only a colloquial version that followed on after some giant US foodco invented Jello during the last century

the root word is "gel" & this has to be latin & i rather suspect derives from greek, possibly even sanskrit. Think gelatin, gelatinous.

me i'm a partial OED language purist so with this one i'm sticking to "gel" for the time being. Maybe i'll ungel eventually. Imagine proto indo europeans boiling up a giant mammoth in a cauldron. Fire goes out, cave gets cold. Next day they discover delicious paté w lovely clear jelly on the top. Outside the ground is frozen. C'est du gel, they grunt to each other.

.

 

[humble_pie]

I am not a purist, and will just go with whatever version seems not to produce the little red squiggles when I type

i've turned my little red squigglifier off as it was so idiotic

studied latin unto the 3rd year of university & do not make spelling mistakes heh

it's a slapdash casual forum here though so i give myself the liberty of using slang or inventing a word or 2 now & then

 

[humble_pie]

re the pressure cooking of chicken in an IP: doesn't this take just as long as regular roasting in an oven? doesn't it mean more cleanup if both the instant pot & the broiler oven/broiler pans have to be used?

personally with my oven i could not get a whole chicken underneath the broiler, there isn't enough vertical space. The upper parts would blacken/burn from being too close to the broiler flames while all lower parts of the bird's skin would remain pallid white, would not crisp up or turn golden under the broiler.

for broiling i'd have to cut the bird up & lay its parts flat on the broiler pan. Messy operation. I just don't see how it saves any kind of time or labour, in fact it adds time & labour.

as peterk says, stuff a tender young chicken w onions/crushed garlic/other herbs/vegetables, roast 1 hour in small roasting pan in standard oven, baste frequently to achieve a golden brown, delicious crispy skin.

afterwards, one small roasting pan to wash up. Not even a lid.

on the other hand, i can totally see the advantage of pressure cooking the chicken bones for broth, also the advantage of pressure cooking very tough cuts such as stewing beef.


* * * * *

overall impression so far: some good cooks have turned instant potting into an alternative mode of cuisine. Sort of parallel to alternative investing. Maybe it'll have its hour in the sun. Like molecular cuisine with a blowtorch. Here today, gone tomorrow.

meanwhile the widespread appeal of instaPotting everything appears to be to millennials who for some reason grew up without any cooking skills. An IP has a tekky gadgetty kind of appeal with its button controls etc, so it's more familiar to a first-time-in-the-kitchen millennial than a plain stainless steel pot or basic cast iron baking dish.

good cooks can cook on anything, even on sticks over an open fire. The other day i browsed past a catering chef who said he'd prepared 1,400 lamb chops for 1,400 guests on nothing but a sterno box at an open-air caterng site. Now that's the kind of challenge which only a Plugging could face!

.