Attention Foodies and Chef types- I AM THE TITS!

[Hayabusa Rider]

This bad boy is on order. Fissler Vitaquick 8.5 qt pressure cooker. Ihave a rice cooker and this beats any instant pot for pressure cooking

 

[DigDog]

you going to be making much chicken stock then ?

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

I have a pressure cooker and almost never use it. The sole benefit is doing things faster and you don't require that with decent planning. Don't cook food that needs 4 hours when you only have 1 hour. Problem solved.

 

[Kaido]

This bad boy is on order. Fissler Vitaquick 8.5 qt pressure cooker. Ihave a rice cooker and this beats any instant pot for pressure cooking

That's a BEAST!! Report back with pics & details! 15 PSI WHOOHOO!

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

you going to be making much chicken stock then ?

Yep, I need some. I'm going to braise beef shortribs and make a red wine reduction glaze. 16 bean soup with smoked pork neck, and a bunch of other things I'd like to try.

What this does mainly is allow another technique that requires little fussing but makes timing easier for an entire meal.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

That's a BEAST!! Report back with pics & details! 15 PSI WHOOHOO!

I had considered the less expensive Fagor but learned the company pretty much folded and an imitation with the Fagor name is produced in China with the expected drop in quality. I invest in things which will outlast me. I have a cast iron Dutch Oven which is about 120 years old and they don't make them like that as I'm sure you know. I figure this can be handed down to my great great grandkids someday.

 

[Kaido]

I had considered the less expensive Fagor but learned the company pretty much folded and an imitation with the Fagor name is produced in China with the expected drop in quality. I invest in things which will outlast me. I have a cast iron Dutch Oven which is about 120 years old and they don't make them like that as I'm sure you know. I figure this can be handed down to my great great grandkids someday.

Yeah, which is one of the reasons stovetop pressure cookers got such a bad rap in the first place - when the copycats came in like the 50's & 60's, they cheaped out on materials & design, resulting in a lot of them exploding, which was pretty horrible!

FWIW, Instant Pot has a new "Max" model out that does 15 PSI, which I believe is the first electric PC to do so:

Instant Pot® Max™ 6-quart Multi-Use Pressure Cooker

The Instant Pot® that delivers maximum pressure.

instantpot.com

For big stuff, I use a GoWise electric pressure cook, which is a whopping 14 quarts:

https://www.amazon.com/GoWISE-USA-GW22637-4th-Generation-measuring/dp/B01LVZY19H

Great when you need 10 pounds of chili, or want to cook an entire turkey so that the meat literally falls off the bone!

 

[Kaido]

I have a pressure cooker and almost never use it. The sole benefit is doing things faster and you don't require that with decent planning. Don't cook food that needs 4 hours when you only have 1 hour. Problem solved.

I have an electric one & I like it for the automation...I can put stuff in & not have to babysit it, which I LOVE! I doubt that I would ever buy a stovetop model for exactly that reason.

While it does generally do things faster, there are a few things that take a long time, such as yogurt (8 to 24 hours) or stock/broth (I usually let it run overnight).

 

[Kaido]

Yep, I need some. I'm going to braise beef shortribs and make a red wine reduction glaze. 16 bean soup with smoked pork neck, and a bunch of other things I'd like to try.

What this does mainly is allow another technique that requires little fussing but makes timing easier for an entire meal.

Timing is like my Achilles' heel in the kitchen. I've taken to writing down the total cook time on all of my Instant Pot recipes, so that I can time everything to come out hot at the same time & ready to eat. It's made me understand why my mom was always so ticked off when my family wouldn't come to dinner when called right away...it's SUPER frustrating getting it all ready & perfect at the same time & then people lollygag in getting to the table after you've put so much work into the meal, lol.

I've got a pretty good approach to doing dinners these days too - I usually try to aim for 4 solid foods at dinnertime:

1. Protein
2. Veggie
3. Starch (rice, potatoes, etc.)
4. Bread

So I might do sous-vide fried chicken, instant pot mixed veggies, sous-vide French fries, and crusty no-knead dinner rolls in the oven. Then I just reference my recipes with the prep times built-in & figure out when I need to do what for dinner every day, so that everything finishes cooking around the same time. Even with that approach, I still finding timing to be an uber-difficult challenge, lol. I have NO IDEA how people like my grandma would do it with a full house at the holidays!

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

I have an electric one & I like it for the automation...I can put stuff in & not have to babysit it, which I LOVE! I doubt that I would ever buy a stovetop model for exactly that reason.

That's what I use a crock pot for. I find that to be a more flexible way of cooking as you can leave it running for 8 or 10 hours without babysitting it, but you can always add things and check done-ness without releasing the pressure and having to rebuild it.

 

[Kaido]

That's what I use a crock pot for. I find that to be a more flexible way of cooking as you can leave it running for 8 or 10 hours without babysitting it, but you can always add things and check done-ness without releasing the pressure and having to rebuild it.

Yeah, that's one of the limitations of pressure-cooking, and is why I tell people you usually have to make a recipe a few times in order to figure it, then tweak it, and then lock it down into your recipe notebook for future use. It's great for consistency, but for live modification, it's a little trickier because you have to rebuild pressure every time you release it.

 

[crashtech]

I had considered the less expensive Fagor but learned the company pretty much folded and an imitation with the Fagor name is produced in China with the expected drop in quality. I invest in things which will outlast me. I have a cast iron Dutch Oven which is about 120 years old and they don't make them like that as I'm sure you know. I figure this can be handed down to my great great grandkids someday.

When did they start making Fagors in China? Ours is over 10 years old, looked on the bottom but it does not say where it's made.

 

[Kaido]

When did they start making Fagors in China? Ours is over 10 years old, looked on the bottom but it does not say where it's made.

The Radipa, Elite, and Splendid are made in China, the others are made in Spain:

fagor pressure cookers

These Fagor pressure cookers are made in China with across-the-board 4 to 5 star ratings by many online customers. So not all products made in China are inferior. Read more...

deliciousunderpressure.com

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

Yeah, that's one of the limitations of pressure-cooking, and is why I tell people you usually have to make a recipe a few times in order to figure it, then tweak it, and then lock it down into your recipe notebook for future use. It's great for consistency, but for live modification, it's a little trickier because you have to rebuild pressure every time you release it.

I was never able to lock down a recipe perfectly in a pressure cooker even with practice. A pot roast and potatoes and carrots will cook differently depending on thickness and the meat marbling and how ripe the veggies are, etc. You can make it one time and it's perfect and next time the exact same way the meat can be underdone and the potatoes mushy just by being different even if they look the same.

 

[crashtech]

@Kaido, ours is a Duo, so made in Spain maybe. It's been a workhorse, that much I know.

 

[Kaido]

I was never able to lock down a recipe perfectly in a pressure cooker even with practice. A pot roast and potatoes and carrots will cook differently depending on thickness and the meat marbling and how ripe the veggies are, etc. You can make it one time and it's perfect and next time the exact same way the meat can be underdone and the potatoes mushy just by being different even if they look the same.

Aside from stuff like chili or soup, I almost always do my ingredients separately. Lately, I do almost all of my proteins exclusively sous-vide, even when I'm making chicken soup in the Instant Pot - I'll separate out the chicken & do that SV & chop it up to add after cooking the stock & veggies. Sounds like a lot of work, but the machines make it all set & forget, so it's actually only a few minute's worth of actual hands-on time!

 

[DigDog]

if you make chicken stock, my advice is to put the raw chicken under the broiler. like, way too close. get some streak marks on that bird. THEN you boil it.

 

[crashtech]

As pedestrian as this may sound, one of the most common uses for our pressure cooker is to make chicken soup out of the remains of a ready to eat roasted Costco chicken. We buy a couple of those a month, probably. I'm assuming that most of those carcasses just get thrown out, when they can serve as a basis for inexpensive and delicious soup.

 

[Kaido]

As pedestrian as this may sound, one of the most common uses for our pressure cooker is to make chicken soup out of the remains of a ready to eat roasted Costco chicken. We buy a couple of those a month, probably. I'm assuming that most of those carcasses just get thrown out, when they can serve as a basis for inexpensive and delicious soup.

You know, I've tried to beat the Costco chicken on both flavor & price at home, but they've got the system figured out lol. Really great article on the whole thing here:

It's only $4.99. But Costco's rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price | CNN Business

At the back of Costco's stores, past the televisions, jewelry, jumbo-sized ketchup jugs and tubs of mixed nuts, is one of the retailer's most prized items: The rotisserie chicken that costs just $4.99.

www.cnn.com

 

[kage69]

Serious pressure cooker, for use on a propane/NG range? Nice. That's the promised land of braised deliciousness.

Now I want spicy barbacoa on something.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Serious pressure cooker, for use on a propane/NG range? Nice. That's the promised land of braised deliciousness.

Now I want spicy barbacoa on something.

Yep on a good propane burner. I like options and some techniques work better than others and can be combined for a whole meal.

Steaks are sous vide and finished with an Iwatani butane torch for a crowd or for two cooked ten degrees lower than usual to finish up in a hot pan by basting with olive oil/butter and usually fresh rosemary. I can do a soup in a slow cooker, rolls in the oven etc. As long as I have time, everything's great.

The issue is with "we have company coming in two hours" which happens. OK, soup in first for 40 minutes, dried beans and all, 5 minutes to clean, short ribs/roast with veggies and a red wine reduction, say an hour with reduction. Pop rolls in the oven before dinner which I can make from scratch in two to three hours, have prepped a salad and made dressing and prep a panna cota for dessert. Everything is ready to be served at our leasure and most of the active cooking time is for prep work.

 

[ponyo]

That's nice looking pressure cooker. We have two stovetop pressure cookers, 3.5L and 4.5L, in addition to 8 qt instant pot. While the stovetop pressure cookers are nice, we switched to using Instant Pot for most pressure cooking needs. Electric is more convenient. We use the 3.5L stovetop pressure cooker occasionally for quick rice if we have additional company. We also use it for occasional beef short rib or chicken braising but most of the time, I just use my kamado or pellet smoker to smoke/braise.

For making beef or chicken stock, I find nothing beats big pot on the stove and slow cooking it all day. Pressure cookers can get the stock done in fraction of time but both the stovetop pressure cookers and Instant Pot make weak tasting stock that's inferior to plain pot. Not to mention, pressure cookers are not that big. I like to make beef stock in huge batch and freeze it in Ziplock bags.