Advice needed on Pressure Cookers

bektoria · 7 January 2006 at 7:26PM

Hi everyone, hope you are having a good weekend.

I had been thinking of buying a pressure cooker as I am planning on eating more pulses, rice etc and thought it would be great for old style saving ! I saw one today at Macro and bought a Prestige Smartplus 5 litres for about £20. Now I have got home and my husband is questioning my impulse buy !!!

Does anyone have any knowledge of this model or could recommend a different model, I don't really want to spend too much.

Many thanks,
Bek

elona · 7 January 2006 at 7:31PM

Sorry that I do not know much about pressure cookers but I love my 6.5 litre slow cooker from morphy richards and DH loves the soups and currries that I make in it.

The reason I like the slow cooker is that I can put food in overnight and it is ready in the morning or I can do this in the morning and food is ready and piping hot later that day.

I found DH eating curry at 7a.m.!!!!

If you tell DH the pressure cooker will save you tine and money and will cook his favourite dishes that should appease him.

Ted_Hutchinson · 7 January 2006 at 7:43PM

If you start Miss Vicky's Pressure Cooker Websiteyou will find all you need to know.

Certainly you will find it far more use than a slow-cooker.

Wonderful for stocks, soups, casseroles, pulses and root veg. Think of it as providing all the benefits of steaming but super-fast and you've got the idea. Should have mentions steam puds as well.

You could have got a similar but stainless steel one recently in lidl's for this price but you'll find it's still good value for money. Same PC at AMAZON for £30 so you've saved a tenner.

Rebob · 7 January 2006 at 8:48PM

I like my stews thick and I can get this with my pressure cooker super speedy. I even bought a mini pc for when camping!

meadowcat · 7 January 2006 at 8:56PM

Miss Vicky's is an excellent site for pressure cookery. The section of beans is first class. Chickpeas take only 10/15 minutes instead of all that boiling and topping up with water and also they stay in one piece rather than the skin part floating away.

I think £20 is a good price. Remember it is important to time carefully as you can't just go and lift the lid to test.

cattie · 7 January 2006 at 9:01PM

I don't have any knowledge of your particular model, but I have had a Prestige pressure cooker for about 4yrs now. Previous to this I had a Tefal model for well over 12yrs. A pressure cooker is an item I woudn't like to be without. Not only does it save on fuel because of the speed it cooks at, but you can cook multiple items at once which saves on washing up. You can have a delicious stew cooked in around 15mins & you can buy the cheapest cuts of meat & they will come out beautiful & tender every time.

You can also use them to speed up the time of meats that you wish to roast. By wrapping them in foil & putting them in the pressure cooker for about 10mins before placing in the oven, you get a joint or chicken roasted in about a third of the time.

I always wrap my veg, apart from spuds, in foil before placing them in the pressure cooker as I find this stops them from being overcooked if my timing is a bit out.

I think you've made a wise investment & won't regret it. Get yourself a decent pressure cooker recipe book & there will be no stopping you!

raeble · 7 January 2006 at 9:41PM

Why do you want a different model? Prestige is a very good brand. Your instruction manual should give you a basic rule on how long things should take roughly. The MS Vicky site is very good.

Anything you cook on the stove normally you can cook in the pressure cooker but in significantly less time. You'll notice this with everything but meats & poultry come out moist and tender - not tough. They're not scary and the new ones are very quiet, you hardly even know its cooking.

SallyinWales · 7 January 2006 at 9:57PM

A pressure cooker is particularly useful for reducing a carcass to stock very quickly. If you've had for example a roast chicken, just chuck anything left over in the pressure cooker, add an onion, maybe a bayleaf and a few peppercorns, top up with water and cook for about 20mins, strain the liquid off and pick out any useable flakes of meat from the bones any you have wonderful stock for soup or cooking.

Pressurecooking also effectively sterilises things, which is handy when making preserves or when dithering about whether things are on their last use by date!

maryb · 8 January 2006 at 9:14PM

I bought the Morphy Richards slow cooker because everyone on this site raves about it. I do use it sometimes but overall I find a pressure cooker is just far more versatile. If I had to choose there would be no contest - pressure cooker would be on my essentials list.
I have a 20 year old prestige prssure cooker and it's still going strong even though I committed the cardinal sin once and let it boil dry with some chickpeas in it. All that happened was that the thingamajig that shows you when it is sealed melted to relaese pressue safely - don't worry it's meant to do that. I took it apart to service, which is very easy and it was perfectly ok afterwards. I don't think I would trust any make other than Prestige and even though I am a fan of Tefal saucepans otherwise I would always buy a Prestige rather than a Tefal pressure cooker.

So I think I can safely say that if you get to grips with pressure cooking you will find that is one of the best buys you will ever have made

£Ronnie · 8 January 2006 at 10:30PM

Hi Bek,

I too bought a pressure cooker this week. Really wanted a slow cooker as everyone on here raves about them, but my mother convinced me otherwise. With two young children it is highly unlikely that I would have anything prepared in time for it to be cooked by teatime! :rolleyes:

I love love love my pressure cooker! Have only done two meals so far but they were both fantastic. The first was cheap tesco value braising steak, added onion, beef stock, carrotts and did mash pots in seperate saucepan. Cooked for 45 mins and the beef came out as tender as butter. Prob cooked it for too long but tasted gorgeous. The second meal was chicken breasts with loads of veg chucked in herbs stock etc and it too was beautiful. Cooked for 12 mins.:D

Initially my husband had the same attitude as yours, "haven't we got enough saucepans??" But after both these meals he has changed and agreed that perhaps I am right yet again!

For some reason I cant get on with Miss Vickys website so am going to invest in a recipie book at some point, in the meantime I am just going to have great fun just chucking things in and seeing how they come out. Currently doing a menu planner to try and get as many meals in as I can for pc!

arkonite_babe · 8 January 2006 at 10:33PM

A pressure cooker is an essential bit of kit ion my house. Spuds for tea, done in 15 mins and super easy to mash. Soups, stews, meat. You name it and some of my lot will have cooked it in the pressure cooker.

I have to say the Miss Vicky's website is a good find. I'll add that to the mega index

EDIT: I've just added that to the mega index in the cooking and recipes section>> websites

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Advice needed on Pressure Cookers

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