Picked up a new toy --Odd Presure Cooker

[mattl]

Our local Goodwill was having one of their seasonal everything 1/2 price days and as I wandered through saw this box sitting there.  Opened it up and found a new unused pressure cooker.  It's made of spun aluminum and looks much like the Calphalon I have.  Interesting design, the lid fits INSIDE the pot.  At $12 I could not pass it up.  I'm giving it a trial run with some dried Navy Beans at the moment.

 

It actually looked smaller in the store, it's close to my trusty Presto 6qt.

 

Anyone seen this design before?

 

[norgeway]

Those were

Popular in the 80s, I remember them being fairly high priced.Hawkins bought the rights from the old Universal pressure cooker, once made by Landers Frary and Clark, the Futura was a modernized streamlined version.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Was this made in India? There were some that looked like this in a hippy-dippy health food store near the U of MD decades ago.

 

[foraloysius]

These are indeed made in India. Here's the Hawkins website:

http://www.hawkinscookers.com/1.1.pressurecooker.html

 

[cuffs054]

The Hawkins site has some interesting recipes. I'm making the Spanish Chicken tonight.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thank you, Louis.

 

[cuffs054]

Spanish Chicken was very good. Used bone in thighs. Will make this again. Sadly, while eating Camille took a job in Paris leaving poor Humphrie all by himself. TV is so cruel.

 

[intuitive]

Hawkins Pressure Cookers

My mum had a Hawkins PC for years..... Tough as nails. She had to change it over to a Sambonet Italian cause her new stove cook top. A hideous Corning Ware glasstop. I inherited the Hawkins. Lost it in a house move yrs ago. I now have a Tefal vitacook.

 

[cuffs054]

I'm still using an old alum Mirro. Would like to get one in SS to use on the induction unit. (Anyway the chicken was good)

 

[mattl]

Well I put the pot to the test with some unsoaked beans, not a fan.  The PC worked fine, very solid unit, clean up was easy too.  Glad to see it's still being made, a little worried if I did use it frequently I'd have a problem getting a new gasket, though the Pesto pot has only had 3 gaskets in the 30+ years we used it.

 

[foraloysius]

Don't worry about a new gasket. These pressure cookers are sold all over the world and probably will be sold for many years. The design appealed to the Museum of Modern Art too.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The gaskets were far shorter-lived and more vulnerable before the invention of Neoprene synthetic rubber. The Neoprene gaskets are not degraded by fats which were harmful to earlier gasket compounds.