Aehm...How embarrassing...Pressure cooker???

The idea is that you build up a lot of steam pressure inside it. That raises the boiling point of water, so your food cooks much quicker than normal- this saves time, and saves gas/electricity too!

As to what to cook in it- pass, I don't have one. My mum used to cook everything from bolognaise to stews/stovies in hers though, and used it to steam the christmas pudding too:).

Edit: I'm prety sure how you use it is: prepare your recipe as usual- e.g. if making a stew, brown your meat and onions, then add other ingredients and water etc. Then put the lid on and put the weight on top of the steam vent hole. Then leave it on a medium to high heat while it heats up. After a few minutes it'll reach maximum pressure and suddenly steam will start to come hissing out from under the weight. At that point you turn the cooker down to a simmer setting and leave it to cook (for a stew I'd say half an hour? Others will know).

When it's done you take it off the heat and put it under the cold tap for a while to cool it down. Once it's reasonably cool you can take the lid off. NEVER try to remove the weight or the lid while it's hot; there's a lot of high pressure, superheated steam in there which can give you a very nasty burn!

If you can tell us what make it is we might be able to point you at the manual for it - though cooking times are much the same for all of them, and the general instructions Rave gave you are spot on.

No problem with the food cooling - you just have to cool the steam down inside the cooker - you'll know you've succeeded because it'll stop coming out of the hole at the top

With a modicum of care they are very useful. Does cabbage in one minute flat, beans in about five, and a whole chicken in twenty!

bargainqueen wrote:

Are you serious, it does a WHOLE chicken in 20 minutes?

Yes! Depends on size of course - but around that for the size of chicken that'll go in a standard cooker.

Blimey..... Maybe it is useful. I will practice tomorrow I think. It is called a magefesa.

Noted - maybe someone has or knows of instructions and timings for it.

Maybe I can make sauerkraut in it. That normally takes me hours. Huh, inspiration is slowly coming to me. So, I have to cool it down before opening. Does it stop me from opening if I forget to cool it? Or is that a risk one takes?

The ones I've seen can't stop you from opening them. Take the weight off the top - put the cooker under a cold tap - and keep it there until no more steam comes out.

This is making me laugh. Do you have one? Can you make a whole meal in it or just individual bits and bobs? Can I boil potatoes in it?

If you've got the trivets and containers yes you can do a whole meal. Yes you can do taters but I can't remember how long they take - about seven or eight minutes and yes I used to have one - it got snaffled by an ex when we split up!

Usually you cannot get the lid to unseal if the pressure has not reduced in the pan, with mine there is a weight kbow which you turn and it lets the steam out, if you do manage to get the lid off before it has cooled you could give yourself a nasty scald with the steam.

Try doing a serch on the internet for your make of pressure cooker and see if you can down load the instruction book.

squeaky wrote:

If you've got the trivets and containers yes you can do a whole meal. Yes you can do taters but I can't remember how long they take - about seven or eight minutes and yes I used to have one - it got snaffled by an ex when we split up!

We do potatoes for about 3 minutes from when the thing pops up to say it's at the right pressure. That's cut into pieces, I've never tried whole ones!