Caution: Contents under pressure

Gather App
Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

Help Support AutomaticWasher.org:

veg-o-matic

veg-o-matic

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 15, 2004
Messages
2,626
Location
Baltimore, Hon!
Well, I finally broke down and got myself a pressure cooker. Since I tend not to like new stuff, I found a grand Presto Control Master PC on the 'bay and tested her out today.
Before doing anything, I replaced the gasket and pressure release thingie. I may be dumb, but I ain't stupid.

Today's experiment was a pot roast. I'm not sure what the cut of beef was--some kind of round, I think. Top or bottom, one of those. It was a very lean piece that I would have turned into shoe leather had I cooked it any other way.

And so we start by browning our meat...

8-27-2006-21-07-11--veg-o-matic.jpg
 
And let it cook away for 30 minutes. The hardest part was waiting for the pressure to go down. I kept poking at the pressure relief thingie with a fork to speed it up.

No explosions.

8-27-2006-21-09-1--veg-o-matic.jpg
 
Thirty minutes later

Huston, we have pot roast.

Made some fresh zucchini with onions to go with.

Turned out rather well, too. Meat was nice and tender and the 'taters were cooked all the way through. I'm going to have to use this more often, now that I've Faced My Fears!

8-27-2006-21-10-41--veg-o-matic.jpg
 
Looks great, Veg! I'm not afraid of my pressure-cooker, but I don't use it often. Just don't EVER try to cook rice (or a recipe containing rice) in it! It foams up and blocks the pressure vent, which can cause an explosion. Your gravy looks excellent, BTW.
 
Hmmm. How the hell did I put this in the Imperial forum? I could swear I was typing on yellow...

Robert, would you be a dear and move this for me?

veg
 
Hey Veg, That looks wonderful. I have a pressure cooker as well but just don't think to use it very often. I bet that roast was nice and tender. Terry
 
That's the exact model

pressure cooker I have! I use it a lot.

Very proud of you, Veg. Very proud. Welcome to the real PC's!

I do cook rice in mine, especially brown or wild rice, but you HAVE to put oil in it, about 1-2 tablespoons, depending on how much rice, but it works perfectly and safely. If you don't put in the oil, you do get a mess unto disaster.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
I use my pressure-cookers quite often - especially on food that needs a long time to cook! Like: beef-tongue, white beans soup, peas-soup, goulash-soup, beef-stock, clear chicken-soup, boiled beef, Eisbein with Sauerkraut (salted/pickeled pork-leg with sour-cabbage), etc.!
Ralf
 
Pressure going down

Bob, my mother used to cook almost daily on a pressure cooker. After the cooking time was up she would just put the whole thing in the sink and open the cold water faucet and let cold water run over the whole pressure cooker. Pressure was down to normal in less than a half a minute, without even cooling down the cooked food inside a bit. She would then remove the pressure counterweight with a fork and next she could easily open the lid. In this way the cooking process stopped immediately, and food did not keep cooking while you'd be waiting for the pressure to go down. Same effect as submerging vegetables in ice cold water after blanching them, before freezing, to immediately stop the cooking process.

Emilio
 
Electric!

Bob, first time I looked at your picture I didn't realize your pressure cooker was electric! Please, forgive my oversight, my mother's pressure cooker was a standard unit for stove top use.

Emilio
 
You can immerse the electric pc with the control removed. The reason you generally don't want to cool it rapidly when cooking meats is that the rapid drop in pressure pulls the juices out of the meat.

Congratulations, Mr. O-Matic! Glad to see you cooking under pressure. You got a nice cooker there.
 
I'm glad that you found a vintage Presto pressure cooker. Presto has it's headquarters in Eau Claire, WI which is only about 101 miles west of Wausau. Vintage Presto's and vintage West Bend pc's are some of the best ever made.
 
PRESTO PRESSURE COOKERS

HII have a presto pressure cooker, it works great. The thing I like is its easy to get parts for. They send you a sheet that has all the model numbers, then list what the part numbers are it uses rubber gaskets,pressure relif valve ect. You call them up order it and in a few days its here.I seen many pressure cookers in the store, but wonder how hard it would me to get part replacements.

View attachment 8-28-2006-20-03-57--kenmore62.jpg
 
vs crock pot

Helen tells me the meat comes out more tender in a crock pot than in a pressure cooker. She did a roast yesterday for about 9 hours in the Rival and you could hardly get the meat with a fork it was so tender and juicy.
 
We've used a Mirro pressure cooker for years. Mostly for pot roast and also for spare ribs. Anything you put in there comes out almost fall apart tender. We prebrown them in the broiler slightly before going into the pressure cooker. Keeps them from coming out gray colored.
A few years ago we gave our neighbor across the street a really nice pressure cooker as a thank you present for watching our house while we were on vacation. She loves it too. But I have encountered quite a few people who don't like them, usually a fear of them blowing up. Seems every one has a story of "the freind who had a stew cooking in the pressure cooker and it exploded embedding the carrots in the ceiling". I think maybe back in the 40's and early 50's this may have happened but with all the safety devices on the modern cookers of today I can't see how an explosion could occur.
Back when I was about 12 or so my mother said that she has a roast cooking in the pressure cooker, make sure I come in the hosue in 10 minutes and turn it off. Then off she went to the store. Of course being involved in a baseball game in the street I rememebered about 45 minutes later. I thought the cooker would explode, but all that happened was the pressure relief valve melted and the house was full of smoke. The only think left of the pot roast was the bone. So if there ever was an opportunity for one to explode, there it was but it didn't.
 
Jason:

I think any with a flat bottom would work on a smooth top stove. All the ones I have ever seen have perfectly flat bottoms.
Most of the new pressure cookers have a "resetable" pressure relief valve. If the pressure gets too high, a buttom pops up. Let the unit cool a little and press the button back in.
Try one, I am sure you will like it!
 
Jason, you want to stay away from a stamped aluminum cooker. The bottom bulges out when pressure builds. Make sure that any stainless steel cooker you consider has a thick aluminum sandwich base for even heating and to make sure that the cooker's base remains flat during cooking. It's less important when cooking with gas, but important with electric. Most Linens & Things sell FAGOR pressure cookers from Spain. It is supposed to be a very good cooker for a reasonable price. Be sure to check ebay and Amazon for some good deals once you have decided what you want, but don't fall for off brands. I like Kuhn-Rikon and WMF Perfect Plus cookers. When looking at different sizes, remember that you can cook a smaller amount is a larger cooker, but you cannot cook a larger amount is a smaller cooker. The usable capacity is 2/3 of the cooker size so a 5 or 6 quart or liter is really not that large.

We loved eye of round roasts done in the large diameter 6 quart cooker. They needed an hour and a half at 15 lbs because they are so thick, but the richly flavored and well seasoned broth in which they were cooked, after a thorough browning, made them delicious. We also liked to put whole onions and a clove or two of garlic in beside the roast. When the roast was done, we lifted it out and put potatoes in the broth and then carrots, added a little salt and pepper, used the squeeze bulb baster to squirt the broth over the carrots a few times and then pressured that for 10 minutes. The potatoes get infused with the broth so they are golden inside and the flavor is in the carrots also. That was one of our favorite Friday night dinners. Sometimes we would have an extra special treat if time permitted, dumplings. They were dropped on top of the carrots and cooked without pressure until they were big and fluffy.
 
Just remember one of the secrets to pressure cooking is to get a good brown on the meats to be cooked before hand by searing at high heat. We usually sear out roasts and such in olive oil and garlic with pepper before actually sealing the unit up for pressurizaton. This also seals in the juices and flavors.

Tomturbomatic:

You are certainly correct about the size of the cooker. We started years ago with a 4 qt unit and we had to cut up the large pot roasts into smaller pieces before cooking.
 
Revere Pressure Cooker

Jason, I bought a Revere pressure cooker a few years back at their local outlet store. Two pressure settings, flat bottom to it and it works well on the flat top GE stove I have.
 
I still like a Presto pressure cooker

for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that replacement consumables, gaskets and overpressure plugs are very easily available, even (usually) in small-town hardware stores.

Presto does have a newer series with built in quick release, and most of the features of the European pressure cookers. They make stainless steel pressure cookers with aluminum bottoms. However, aluminum cookware doesn't really freak me out.

However, for a pot roast like Veg's above, you want pressure to drop naturally. If you were to quick release a pot roast, it would be an inedible brick.
It is, admittedly, a challenge to wait, when it smells that good.

Again, I will mention Lorna Sass as one of the best writers on pressure cooking. Her "Pressure Perfect" is excellent. There are other writers, like Victoria Wise "The Pressure Cooker Gourmet," and it's a good book, but I just like Lorna's books better.

I am adding the link to Presto's home page.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

http://gopresto.com
 
Second time around

Today it was pork chops. Center cut, very lean.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. They came out fork tender and delightful. I made some gravy too (used Wondra flour this time. Anyone ever used it?) Served alongside were cauliflower (the gravy helped take the curse off it) and some herbed rice.

I don't know why I avoided using a pressure cooker for so long. Sucker is great!

veg
 
Wondra

flour is terrrific. It is specially processed, spray dried, I think (not certain,) so that it makes sauces without lumping. It's not cheap, but for special circumstances (like Thanksgiving gravy,) it is well worth it.

When novice cooks ask me about flour-based sauces, I strongly suggest that they use it until they get more experience. I can make a lump-free gravy now without it, but I still like it and still buy it once in a while.

I get a shaker can of it every so often, and store the can in a wide mouth preserving jar in the freezer.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Wondra

Wondra is one of those things that was around during my childhood that you see on the shelf and think "Wow. They still make that?"

Betty Crocker/General Mills pushed Wondra all through the 60's, and then pretty much dropped it for a long time. They still made it, but you never saw mention of it. Actually, you hardly ever see advertising for it.

My mom, who is a very good cook when she thinks about it, can make a beautiful gravy, but I'm afraid I inherited my paternal grandmother's inability to make anything even approaching a smooth gravy, regardless of the flour.
 
I don't know, Dan. For years I thought I didn't possess the "gravy gene" but I'm getting better.

Grab some Wondra and try it out. Practice makes perfect. If your gravy comes out crappy, you can always just toss it.

Back in the '60s, Pillsbury offered this granulated flour in 5lb sacks just like regular flour. I believe they called it "Instant Blending" flour. I have a commercial for it somewhere.

It must have been popular around 1964, as I have some Family Circle magazines from that year that mention substituting it in many of their recipes. There's even a recipe from Pillsbury about how to use it to make pie crust with an electric mixer! I want to try that once just because it sounds so weird.

veg
 

Similar threads

parunner58
To all the cooks under pressure
Replies
11
Views
247
parunner58
parunner58

Latest posts

Sponsored
UnlistMe
Back
Top