Recommend me a pressure cooker

cooking-mama

jessnjimmy wrote: »

How do you find the prestige smartplus cookingmamma? I have one being delivered today from amazon. :j

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Im still kinda learning with mine,i think i have a tendency to overcook turkey/chicken...my first whole chciken i did in 30min and the legs burst,i did cubed turkey yesterday and it was kinda dry and tasteless.However im sure its user error,my potatoes/veggies mince etc are always perfect and thick round braised steaks were cooked to perfection...im definately a pressure cooker convert,and im even thinking of investing in the Khun Rikon for meat etc,and keeeping the prestige for the veggies,tatties,soup..that way all food will be ready at the same time,although today I cooked the carrots in with the mince,then 5 min before it was ready i let out the steam and added jersey royals to the tray and cooked for another 7mins...perfect one pot meal.
im gonna have to look for a good pressure cooker book tho.

jessnjimmy

i did my gammon in apple juice with bay leaves and peppercorns, it was so tender.
Going to do a whole chicken in it today later on so let you know how it goes
It is trial and error though isn't it as I had to do my jersey royals for a further 2 mins after putting them on for 5 mins. The steam release is fab though !!!!

I bought ' The pressure cooker recipe book ' by Suzanne Gibbs. It's great nice glossy pictures and english measurements, not cheap though a tenner on amazon. Hope this helps

jessnjimmy

cooking-mamma when you did your whole chicken, did you put it in the basket thingy or straight into the bottom of the pot? Not sure on this one

cooking-mama

jessnjimmy,I made a whole chicken today again and it was cooked to perfection...i left on the elastic thingy around the legs and sqeezed the whole chicken into the basket and placed it on the trivet,i poured over 400ml of boiled water with a stock cube in and i sprinkled some paprika on top of the chicken(just to add colour cos i didnt brown it first).
chicken weighed 1.325gm and i cooked it for 30min exactly,but i didnt release the steam for another 5 mins...no burst legs or dried out breast meat,it was perfect.
Gonna do a cubed beef stew tomorrow before work.

jessnjimmy

Suzanne Gibbs says in her book that I bought that releasing the pressure quickly can be too harsh on lots of foods.

Have you noticed though that with our recipe book nearly all of them say to reduce pressure quickly??

All the recipes in my book say to reduce pressure naturally so I'm probably gonna try letting pressure reduce gradually next time.

Did you use the slow release of pressure this time with your chicken? Thanks for the tips, didn't get round to doing a chicken last night. will do one later.
Thanks for all your replies by the way - really helpful

cooking-mama

jessnjimmy,yes i did use the quick release,but not immediately,i turned the gas off for around 5mins to stop it steaming and then i used the quick release (last time i just used quick release right away,so i dunno if leaving it for 5mins beforehand is what made it better this time)
next time i may just leave it to release naturaly....not sure how long that would take?10/mins maybe??
im working at 12 today,so gonna put on the beef stew for the familys dinner tonight(much better than leaving the slow cooker on all day....20mins and their dinner will be ready )

jessnjimmy

gonna put a garlic chicken in now the way you described so will post results later lol

I ordered another pressure cooker this week - prestige smartplus aluminium 5l one for my taties and veg - only 25 quid on amazon

morganlefay

I watched the Suzanne Gibbs chicken recipe on Youtube today and was amazed at how little liquid she used. In the 'olden days' I used to pressure cook with masses of liquid and things were always very wet and sloppy, but I think this might be a huge difference and I have just ordered her book from the library to see if all her recipes are as good as the chicken one looked - so thank you for pointing me in her direction !

jessnjimmy

no problem morganlefay, some lovely recipes in there.

cooking-mamma the garlic chicken was superb, I used the slow release method though and it took about 5 mins for pressure to be released.

Absolutely stunning :T

cooking-mama

Hi jessnjimmy,glad to hear the chicken cooked well(do you have a recipe for garlic chicken?)
I didnt fair too well with my diced steak stew..cooked it for the recommended 20mins,after which the steak cubes were bouncing off the fork..back on for another 10mins..a wee bit better,but it took a further 10mins cooking for it to be edible..(so all in 40mins).
dunno what i did wrong there,cos previousley my braised steaks were perfect at 20mins.