Pressure Cookers - Love or Hate Them?

[launderess]

Wondering if anyone still uses pressure cooker? Growing up we had one, and while one cannot remember what exactly came out of it, and if it was good or bad (wouldn't have made much difference, one ate what was put before you and that was that *LOL*), or have microwaves made PCs surplus to requirements.

Was going to make chicken curry the other night, and thought it might be faster and a tad eaiser in a pressure cooker. Surely wouldn't heat up the kitchen as with using the oven.

 

[westie2]

Love them

Have used the older pressure cookers and we have had for about a month a new electric one. What a difference. The new one is so much easier to use and is almost fool proof. Have made several roast (beef, pork and chicken). We made some sweet and sour chicken and was so fast and good. The one we have will also brown, slowcook and can be a rice steamer/cooker. The chicken curry sounds good di you make it.

I have a 1940's presto cooker and the cook book with it. The recipes in it are good. If you watch the older cookers they are great but have to relly wath them the new ones are like set it it does its thing.

 

[spiceman1957]

Pressure Cookers

are wonderful for cooking tough cuts of meats and having dinner on the table quickly. My mother had a large Presto pressure cooker/canner that she used all the time for cooking large pork shoulders to canning vegetables in the summer. My Dad used it for cooking wild game as well.
John

 

[mattl]

Love 'em...

I have one from the '60s, stainless steel and use it often. I've replaced the seal and the rubber ring many times over the years. One thing I do wish it had was variable pressure levels. Most of the new one's I've seen do allow you to cook with different pressures.

 

[danmantn]

New, electronic ones are daBomb!

 

[volvoguy87]

Love mine!

1958 Mirro. New seal, safety plug, and vent.

Fast, saves energy, and good easy results,
Dave

 

[rp2813]

I like using mine. I have a 60's avocado four quart Mirro (I gave it to my mom, she didn't like using one, so I took it with me when I moved out) and a few years back bought an eight quart Presto because parts are easier to come by. The Mirro couldn't accommodate two jumbo artichokes, and artichokes are what I use the PC for more than anything else. The Presto gets them done to perfection 10 minutes after reaching pressure.

I bought a PC cookbook recently but have only made a stew recipe from it. It turned out fairly well. I should use my PC more often but just don't think to do it.

 

[maytagbear]

LOVE

I have three, use them frequently.

2 4 quart electric Presto cookers, and one 6 quart stovetop Presto.

One of the electric Presto's was Ma's, one was from 2009s Secret Santa****, Kelly. These are essentially stovetop cookers with an element and a Control Master underneath.

The 6 quart was from a rummage sale, in perfect condition.

I have read many of the currently available pressure cooker cookbooks, and come back to Lorna Sass's Pressure Perfect. My review is on Amazon.

A lovely pot roast with vegetables in 35 minutes! Dried beans, cooked to perfection in 15 minutes. Whole potatoes, in a blink of an eye.

I make chili in the pressure cooker, and take it to Book Group in my (preheated insert) slow cooker, and only I know how little time it actually took. They rave at the "long cooked" flavour. Alton Brown, in his first book, I'm Only Here For The Food makes chili in his pressure cooker.

Like any other very powerful kitchen accoutrement, they are perfectly safe when used by directions. A sensible person would not use a food processor without reading its book first, and likewise with a pressure cooker.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

**** Watch for the Secret Santa announcement in "As The Tub Turns" later this week!

 

[launderess]

Thanks Guys For The Responses.

Please keep them coming! *LOL*

Westie -

No, didn't make the chicken curry afterall. The recipe (from my vintage "Joy Of Cooking" book), calls for cooking in an oven or about an hour. As NYC was currently having an "Indian Summer" with temps in the 80's, putting on that gas oven wasn't in the cards.

The recipe is simple once you have everything at hand. Basically you brown the chicken pieces (in butter), then add seasonings, onions, peppers etc into the pot (I use a heavy vintage Dutch oven), to brown them. Once all that is done you add canned tomatoes, add back in the browned chicken, then into the oven it goes. Oh yes, towards the end of cooking one can add either raisins or currants. Serve with rice and or "nan" bread.

Only thing is one's home will smell like curry for days! I used packaged curry seasoning from the supermarket, IIRC it is McCormicks or "Hunters", not sure.

Back To Pressure Cookers:

Stainless versus Aluminum, have read posts on various boards, and everyone seems to have pros and cons for each.

Vintage vs New - The "queen" of pressure cookers, MissVickie does not recommend purchasing older units, but suggests one buy new. Her reasons are varied, but most seem to center on the fact that modern units have more built in safet features. Also old aluminum can pit, crack and so froth giving bacteria a place to hide (her words,not mine), thus risking exposure.

One thing I can say after owning several vintage Magnalite items is yes, one does have to be careful what one cooks in aluminum. Also my vintage Wearever Chicken Bucket has warped from years of use, and no longer sits flat. Supposedly aluminum will do this if the pot is not properly made.

 

[rinso]

Couldn't imagine not having a pressure cooker among my cooking equipment. I have used and developed so many yummy recipies that require one.

 

[lordkenmore]

I know nothing about pressure cookers, and so I don't feel safe in arguing with The Queen of Pressure Cookers. That said, I'm sure that there are some who would argue for used. People, for example, who make it a policy to avoid any kitchen item made in China. Then, it gives a potentially lower cost, lower risk of loss way of trying the technology. This is a real argument for me--I am curious about pressure cookers, but I don't have a pile of money to potentially throw away on something I might not like/use.

Of course, one real problem with buying a used or vintage pressure cooker is that it obviously needs to be in good working condition. This does not strike me as being an item one should guess about. Not unless one wants--as Marvin the Martian would say--"an earth shattering kaboom."

 

[lordkenmore]

I do seem to recall that Julia Child was somewhat critical of pressure cookers. It seems to me many of her recipes said: "OK, use a pressure cooker, if you want, but only for so long, don't cook the entire time under pressure." Of course, it can be argued she was a hopeless perfectionist. (I would have argued that when I tried her recipe for Beef Burgandy which took all afternoon and almost every cooking item in the kitchen, and resulted in a dish that was quite good, but not good enough that it was better than the quick and dirty version my mother had used for years!)

My thought of the day, which seems incredibly obvious: one should use kitchen gadgets only to the extent that they help.

 

[austinado16]

Learning to love them...

My mom used one when we were kids umpteen years ago, but I'd really forgotten about them.

Not sure what got me thinking about them again, maybe it was stumbling across a vintage Wagner Ware cast iron griddle for 2 bucks, cleaning and seasoning it, and realizing how great most all of this "old" cookware is. BTW, that griddle started me in using and gathering more vintage Wagner Ware (the thin pre-WWII stuff).

So there I was in the local Goodwill, staring at a big 6qt aluminum Presto stove top PC and thinking to myself, "I need a pressure cooker, especially a vintage one."

It appears to be from about 1954 and I've used it twice to cook corn on the cob just as a test run. I just laughed at how fast it cooked, and how good the corn was.

I'm happy to say that a PC is now part of the vintage cooking adventures in our kitchen!

 

[sudsmaster]

I bought a Cuisinart electronic pressure cooker this past year, and used it mostly to cook artichokes in season. It did reasonably well at that, but I did have some trouble tracking the right time to release the pressure, as the cooker lives in the enclosed patio and is easy to forget about. Still, it was less hassle than trying to guesstimate how much water to add to a conventional pot and that awful aroma of burnt artichoke.

I tried making beans with it once, without pre-soaking, but wasn't too impressed with the results. The beans (yellow) were unevenly cooked. Some tender, others too tough. Overnight presoaking and slower simmering on the stovetop seems to give more even results.

I might use it this winter to make pasta sauce from tomatoes I harvested from the garden and vacuum sealed and froze for later use.

I might try it again for brown rice, which takes forever in a conventional rice cooker.

 

[launderess]

Electric Pressure Cookers

IIRC, and at least by the scuttlebutt from sites such as "Chowhound.com", electric pressure cookers only reach about 10psi, versus the 15psi for range top. This could be the reason behind the poor results with your beans.

Some seem to feel the electric pressure cookers are no more than highly developed slow cookers, but then again YMMV.

Know Wearever made an electric version of their "Chicken Bucket", but then again that gadget was a low pressure regardless of range or otherwise.

I make rice, brown or otherwise in my vintage old and heavy Wagner Alumium pot. Takes about 30-40 mins after water comes to the boil, but never fails to turn out great.

 

[whirlcool]

We had a Presto aluminum 4qt PC that we bought a few years ago. It seemed to be made out of spun aluminum. The surface inside was rather rough textured. I think we paid about $50.00 for it new.

Laundress you are right about food catching in the walls of the aluminum PC. Teeny tiny bits of food are driven in between the "lines" of the texture of the interior. We tried scrubbing, and it just wouldn't come totally clean. So dissatisfied, we finally tossed it out. It worked great but was a PITA to clean.

So we will be looking for a new PC soon, but a stainless steel model for easier cleanup. I think we'll stick with a stovetop model as I like to have instant heat control.

My mother had about a 58' Mirro. It had smooth insides and cleaned up nicely. It also had a pressure weight on the top that let you select sevral different pressures. She had that thing for years and years.

 

[norgeway]

Pressure Cookers!

Are a must for me, I have 15 or 20 old ones,Mirro, Presto, Ecko,and Revere, all are good, but I use a 59 Mirro Matic and a 57 Presto all the time, Im NOT afraid of aluminum, because I never let acid foods stay in them, and always scour them out with steel wool after every use,and the Stainless ones are prone to stick if you are not very careful!, I use them for all vegetables...Green beans- 5 min, Potatos to mash 8 min,, a pot roast, about 45 min, pinto beans 35 min,a whole chicken to stew 45 min, you get wonderful flavor and beautiful results,I grew up with one so I have never had any fear of a PC.

 

[iheartmaytag]

so froth giving bacteria a place to hide

Me the bigges germ-o-phombe on the planet probably wouldn't worry about bacteria in a pressure cooker; as the temps reach 240 or higher while operating. These are actually the devices we use to steralize food in canning.

My bigger worry would be that the vessel has weakened over the years of heating and cooling along with the pitting could rupture under pressure.

 

[xraytech]

I am just learning to love the pressure cooker.
Growing up mother never had one since my gram instilled this fear of them exploding. Whereas my other gram used a pressure cooker, mostly for corn on the cob and sometimes when she made halupki.

I started out with an electric 5qt Cooks Essentials model from QVC. I use it often for pot roast, spare ribs, chili, beef tips and gravy, and this summer I was able to use it to pressure can green beans as I harvested them(it accomodates 4 pint jars)

I am now searching for a vintage electric Presto cooker to try since it is more like a stove top version