The Opposite of Slow Cooking

Behold my Presto Pressure cooker circa 1989 (or so).  If you want this model you will need to scour E-Bay, church bazaars and garage sales. You probably have one that you’ve never used, and if you do I’d like to convince you to pull it out from waaaay back in your cabinets and give it a whirl.  If you want a new one you can find them at all price ranges, from a $550 electric model to the more modest type like mine from Presto for about $55.00 for a nice stainless model .  I do recommend stainless over aluminum.  One of the many things I love about it is that in a little less than one hour (including prep time) I can have a lovely bowl of beef barley soup, or falling off the bone chicken soup.

This pressure cooker was a gift, and I have been using it for the past twenty five years with no incidents, accidents, or issues.  I started using it when I was sick with a very nasty cold, and knew that only homemade chicken soup would make me feel better.  I threw everything into the pot, cooked it for fifteen minutes (once it reached pressure)  and had the best chicken soup I’d ever had.  I was halfway through the bowl before I realized I hadn’t even put any seasoning in—the pressure had extracted so much flavor from the chicken and the vegetables that no extra seasoning was needed!

What I do now when I make soup, and it is not an emergency situation, is make the soup with some whole or large pieces of carrot, onion and celery for the initial cook, and then pull out those spent veggies, and replace them with some nice fresh ones, cook for another 2-3 minutes under pressure again, and I have some really great soup, really fast!  What the pressure cooker does is by increasing the atmospheric pressure inside the pot the food cooks at a higher temperature than 212°F the temperature at which water boils and evaporates.  If you’d like more science here is a link.

I can’t explain why this method brings out more flavor, though my hypothesis is that the pressure literally pulls the flavor/essence/whatever out of the food, kind of like wringing it out, drawing all the flavor into the liquid, but leaving the vegetables empty shells of their former selves.  If you want to put noodles in your soup I recommend you cook them separately, but things like rice and barley will work fine.  It is also great for cooking dried beans.  I have made stews, braises and soups in my pressure cooker, and whatever the alchemy is, it works every time!   Now that the cooler weather is here I will be posting plenty of recipes using mine.