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.

 

^ Me neither, that's why I used my extra cold brita-filtered water from the fridge.

4 minutes for potatoes? Obviously I didn't time things right at all on my first try...

 

4 minutes for potatoes? Obviously I didn't time things right at all on my first try...

Yup. I just double checked the Cooking Time Tables sheet that comes with the instant pot. It says 12-15 minutes for large whole potatoes. 8-10 minutes for small whole potatoes, and 3-4 minutes for cubed potatoes. This is on high pressure.

 

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

 

I find if you put in the items on the sauté function (the heat is higher) then let it heat up for a bit, put the lid on, then switch to pressure cook it seems to save a little time. However, this does not work on all items as some will burn

 

I pan seared the scallops separately for like 2 minutes. Duh

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

 

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.

 

That being said, I don't think I'd do risotto again in the IP. It was pretty good... but didn't have quite the right texture and smoothness I was looking for, and it only was moderately faster and easier than the regular method (which takes 50-60 minutes).

Thanks Plug. I will try to get things to a boil on the sautee mode first. You'd think high sautee and high pressure modes would equally have the burner set to max, though, eh?

 

Ya it was the standard Arborio risotto rice. I'm not sure if it's the best authentic Italian short grain risotto rice, but that's what all the standard American recipes ask for.

Does it really only take 15 minutes of stirring? It takes me 30+minutes of stirring and broth adding to make it by scratch, and that's just the stirring part that comes after the sauteeing and broth heating. I've heard that you can speed this up by just adding the broth in larger batches, stirring less often and boiling harder and the creaminess is not compromised. I'm not so sure though. I like the constant stir, barely wet rice method.

The point was people were saying you can even make risotto in the IP. A finicky recipe. I suppose it wasn't bad but it wasn't that great. I'l probably sick with things like speeding up the cooking of large vegetables, stews, and softening tough meats.

Getting to the point in life where I think I should be working harder at value added things like exercise, working more, socializing more, reading, and not trying to distract myself with things like elaborate food planning & preparation, which I've used as a pretty reliable excuse for the last 10 years whenever I should've been doing something more important.

 

I'l probably sick with things like speeding up the cooking of large vegetables, stews, and softening tough meats.

That's all I use my pressure cooker for, it's what is does best.
Many recipes "can" be done in the IP (pressure or not) but it's not always easier or better ...

 

^^ 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!

 

Ironically, risotto is one of things I have started cooking again because of my IP.

I had successfully made restaurant creamy risotto once prior to the IP and no coincidence prior to having kids. I am not the most patient cook and found I often would get interrupted with something that would distract me from the stirring slowly adding broth. I would get sometime barely edible results.

I found with the IP, I can get decent butler consistent results as the distractions of all going on in my home don’t seem to impact the instant pot cooking. The other bonus is, I had my kids make the risotto in the IP. It takes a lot less technique, patience and is not finicky. True, not quite as creamy, but a tad more butter seemed to do the trick.

I have found the IP isn’t the trick for everything, there are still recipes I will never IP , such as a cracking skin pork roast, pork belly, slow prime rib. However, for other recipes such as risotto, it’s close enough for me for now. I also love my recipes that I would braise, so couldn’t do it on a weekend, when I have minimal time to get dinner ready before our activity.

 

Ironically, risotto is one of things I have started cooking again because of my IP.

I had successfully made restaurant creamy risotto once prior to the IP and no coincidence prior to having kids. I am not the most patient cook and found I often would get interrupted with something that would distract me from the stirring slowly adding broth. I would get sometime barely edible results.

I found with the IP, I can get decent butler consistent results as the distractions of all going on in my home don’t seem to impact the instant pot cooking. The other bonus is, I had my kids make the risotto in the IP. It takes a lot less technique, patience and is not finicky. True, not quite as creamy, but a tad more butter seemed to do the trick.

I have found the IP isn’t the trick for everything, there are still recipes I will never IP , such as a cracking skin pork roast, pork belly, slow prime rib. However, for other recipes such as risotto, it’s close enough for me for now. I also love my recipes that I would braise, so couldn’t do it on a weekend, when I have minimal time to get dinner ready before our activity.

 

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

.

 

jello-ified is most certainly the proper verbiage! :biggrin:

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".

 

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

 

As a side note, I was so happy to see that my Instant Pot Ultra CAN be turned into a sous vide machine. I didn't know this until I accidently hit some wrong settings, and then noticed it had temp controls in the sous vide range. The machine book did not advertise this, so I googled it, and low and behold it can sous vide, but does not have the water circulation. I haven't had a chance to try this out, but next weekend, I plan to sous vide some thick 1.5 inch steaks and maybe a duck confit.

I am so excited.

 

^^ 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.

 

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

Thanx for the nice compliment. I like to cook but I know my taste runs to old fashioned common dishes and I can't compare to the fancy guys and gals. As for politics I know better than to talk sense to anyone who is not ready to listen so, no worries there.

 

Well since you won't let it go... yes I think "gelled" is probably the correct verb. Though my Jello-ified is clearly the more fun variation.

I don't really like being a meticulous "food engineer" - I enjoy just tossing things together and not following recipes. But sometimes I just can't help it, and get upset when I see people doing things clearly wrong in the kitchen! In school I'd often find myself looking at charts of beef cuts instead of rock cuts... perhaps that's why it took so long to finish university...

 

I used the sauté function for the first time on my instant pot to brown a couple of boneless skinless chick breasts, then added a bit of water and pressure cooked them. They turned out perfect...brown on the outside but still tender in the middle. I normally cook chicken breasts in a frying pan but you have to be diligent as letting them cook too long turns them into rubber.

 

Neat, thanks, I'll try that. Did you end up with them swimming in water at the end of the pressure cooking? Curious what to do after that... do you just dump out the water?

I've been using the IP as a rice cooker as well. I find jasmine rice turns out more aromatic.

 

Any tips on cooking a whole chicken in the instant pot? I've never cooked a whole chicken before but there's a sale and I was thinking of picking one up after work today.

 

It’s not quite the same as a chicken in the oven. I did the chicken right off of the instant pot site. My instant t chicken is.
1. Clean and dry chicken. Turn instapot on high for sauté.
2. Stuff chicken (varies) with large chunk of onion, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh herbs,
3. Season outside with salt and pepeper, some times a season mix.
4 heat a little oil, and sear all sides of the chicken until skin is browned.
5. Life chicken to rack so it’s not directly touching bottom. Add some chicken broth or liquid.
6. Pressure cook on high. Can’t remeber the time.

Ready to serve.

 

Chicken takes like < 1 hour to roast in the oven... I don't know why anyone would want to instapot it.

Problem with instant pot is there is no preheating stage available, so you have to do all your work preparing the food, and then as the very last step load it all into the cooker, and then press start, waiting 15-20 minutes to preheat.

 

Problem with instant pot is there is no preheating stage available, so you have to do all your work preparing the food, and then as the very last step load it all into the cooker, and then press start, waiting 15-20 minutes to preheat.

There's a workaround...add some water and start it on "sauté" to heat it to boiling which reduces the pre-heat stage significantly.

 

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!

.

 

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?


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!

.

HP: You are right about roasting a chicken. Generally, about the same amount of time as the oven. Except, in the case where you have a frozen chicken. Not that I have to cook a frozen chicken often, but it has happened, so it's nice to have the option when you have one of those weeks. I found the clean up to be easier than when I do a roasting pan. So yesterday, I made IP some drumsticks under 20 min, and then broiled them on my silicon mat for about 5 minutes. It worked well, as I didn't have the sticky sauce all over my tray, but rather, I had the sauce in the pot, which I made a glaze for it.

You are definitely right, it's just another tool in the kitchen. I always loved the concept of pressure cooking on a stove, and even have one. However, I was never precise enough (or not distracted enough) to time everything properly. There are definitely things I wouldn't use the IP for. It has a lot of safety features so I feel more comfortable having my kids cook with it when I am not there. They don't love putting things in the oven. So I can have them get dinner going while I am driving home, and then finish off when I get home.

Again, as you said, good cooks can cook with almost anything. Ironically, it was over campfires, I was most comfortable in cooking. I was an AWFUL cook. However, whenever went camping, my meals were really upscale compared to my friends. I think one of the reasons was, I was and still am unfortunately know for starting the occasional kitchen fire. At least with a campfire, the fire was supposed to be there. I haven't catered 1400 people, but I have done girl guides camps with over 300 people, and trying to cook with limited supplies has always been on off the fun challenges. We were making pringle can mini roasters, tin can buddy burners, and of course anything you could cook on a campfire is fair game. I pride myself on not cooking the standard stuff at camp, and only make hot dogs cause the girls ask for them.

I think if I wasn't in a rush all the time, I would still use an IP, but just not as much.

 

An instant pot is just a tool and like most tools, works better for specific uses, just like a barbeque is best for certain items and an oven is better for others. Choose your cooking method based on the outcome you desire.

 

Regarding mess & cleanup: only the IP got dirty. For the final broiling step I just spread the meats on a sheet of aluminum foil, and disposed of the foil. And my new soup is also in the IP currently.

If oven roasting the chicken, you'll get quite a mess on the roasting pan or broiling pan and I have trouble cleaning those.

So I still feel like the IP minimizes mess, especially considering that it both cooked my whole chicken plus the soup.

PS this time I added oyster mushrooms to the soup, late stage, and really like how this turned out

 

Making some (hopefully) nice Lamb stock tonight, after a large leg of lamb roast yesterday (braised in the oven).

Freezer has too much stock these days... need more containers.

 

Freezer has too much stock these days... need more containers.

Or start using the stock...

I'm guilty of overstocking the freezer too...I stock up when things are on sale but I'm not eating as fast as I'm buying.

 

I make yogurt in my Instant Pot at least once every two weeks. I like Greek style yogurt, so I strain it. My freezer compartment is bursting at the seams due to jars of whey. I use the whey for soups and baking, but I just can’t use it fast enough, so sometimes I pour it down the sink.

 

Tried that Doesn't work well for me for some reason... I have these bags all over the damn freezer with cubes flying around. and if I want to thaw them I need another bowl which makes a mess... and the little cubes get freezer burned really easily compared to in tupperware.

Since you're into that though, what I found by far the best for freezing was to do it in these bendy silicone mini-loaf or muffin tray moulds. Once frozen, you literally peel back the silicone and the broth blocks pop right out.

 

Strange, I love freezing things individually and then throwing them in a ziplock. I do have alots of silicon trays, and that's usually how I do the 1/2 cups.