Instant Pot

[AWCHIEF]

Originally Posted by Gearheart

I have an old Presto cast aluminum pressure cooker, purchased at a yard sale, uses no electricity and does everything the IP does. It just needs to be monitored.

Not going to argue but I Disagree, check out the web site and Facebook page.

[Lily&Me]

Originally Posted by Gearheart

I have an old Presto cast aluminum pressure cooker, purchased at a yard sale, uses no electricity and does everything the IP does. It just needs to be monitored.

Some people like old things, and the old ways....my husband was one of those, and proud of it.


Maggie

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by AWCHIEF

Not going to argue but I Disagree, check out the web site and Facebook page.

Yeah, agreed, this device is more than appears.


1990 35' Silver Streak
2004 555 Cummins

[AWCHIEF]

Cooked my first Instant Pot dinner tonight. Potato Salad with boiled eggs and Baby Back Ribs. Came out amazingly good for a first effort. 4 minutes for potatos and eggs. 18 minutes for ribs plus 8 minutes each side after adding sauce under the broiler to caramelize the sauce. Normally it takes me an hour to make potato salad and 5 hours for ribs. This going to make an excellent addition to the trailer kitchen.

[OTRA15]

You got my mouth watering last night! The salad is amazing, especially how well the hard-boiled eggs seem to work in the Instant Pot:

http://www.earthmamasworld.com/insta...ick-delicious/

Thanks.

[Gearheart]

So I did check it out and aside from being programmable, allowing the user to neglect it for a time, it is only a pressure cooker. All of the wonderful meals it can make can also be made in a regular pressure cooker if the user brings a mind to the table.

[AWCHIEF]

Originally Posted by Gearheart

So I did check it out and aside from being programmable, allowing the user to neglect it for a time, it is only a pressure cooker. All of the wonderful meals it can make can also be made in a regular pressure cooker if the user brings a mind to the table.

My mind is still working just fine, thank you. (Most days)

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by Gearheart

So I did check it out and aside from being programmable, allowing the user to neglect it for a time, it is only a pressure cooker. All of the wonderful meals it can make can also be made in a regular pressure cooker if the user brings a mind to the table.

And propane.

Part of the appeal of some items (I'm not alone in this) is to have electric and non-electric alternatives. Major or minor appliances.

Campfire cooking a third level.

One of the nice things about plenty of space and cargo weight capacity is some redundancy.

Convenience has more than one level.

Etc.


1990 35' Silver Streak
2004 555 Cummins

[ViewRVs]

Cherry Ve Ard of Technomadia uses an Instant Pot and wrote a review on her RV blog.

http://www.technomadia.com/2015/05/n...get-additions/

We also have one and home and my wife loves it.

[WherryWillie]

I wrote this out, thinking I was the first guy in the world to get one. I've come to the forum to post it and find, well, plenty of folks here already. There are a few redundant points here, but apologies for that and here is my -- very positive take -- on the Instant Pot.

I got an electric pressure cooker for Christmas and it has great potential in the AS. I got an “Instant Pot” which typically retails around $100 but my wife found it for $60 someplace on-line. There are several other brands; search on “electric pressure cooker”. The key features are these:
Unlike the stove-top pressure cookers, these maintain their own temperature so that pressure is maintained but they don't explode. You can set the device to cook for a set amount of time and then, once the cooking is done, it will drop down to a keep-warm temperature. They also have a “slow cook” mode that replicates a crock-pots temperature without the pressure.

I've made several soups and stews, chili, a pot roast and steel-cut oat meal. There are several cook-books out there but it comes down to this. Any recipe that calls for prolonged simmering or brazing can be done in the pressure cooker in about 50% or 60% of the time for stove-top, crock-pot or oven. That is handy at home, but let me get to the particulars of using it in the AS: it gives off very little heat and virtually no moisture. Let me describe a typical recipe then I'll circle back to that heat/moisture thing.

I made a beef soup tonight. I browned the cubed beef (see browning note below) put it, the vegies, broth and seasoning into the pot, locked on the lid and set it to 50 minutes at high pressure. The recipe called for 1.5 to 2 hours with occasional stirring. I left for about two hours. It took about 25 minutes to get up to pressure and temperature, it cooked for 50 minutes and the timer showed it had been on “keep warm” for 40 minutes. I unplugged it and set a timer for 15 minutes. That is the amount of time it takes for it to cool off and relieve the pressure. Then it can be opened.
If you are in a hurry, you can open the steam vent being very careful not to have your hand or body part over the vent. It sounds complicated, but is not. There is an ample lever there but even so you just nudge it with a spoon and two-foot jet of steam runs for about 30 seconds. You can deflect the jet with a spoon if you don't want to stain the ceiling. Or you can wait 15 minutes.

So here are the AS advantages.
Excess heat and moisture is a recognized problem in the AS. When this is cooking at pressure it gives off absolutely no moisture. The heat jacket is pretty efficient and gives off very little heat. If you use the 15-minute cool-down, termed “natural release” in the recipes there is very little vapor that comes off when you open the pot.
It is a one-pot meal so that saves some dishes.
You can go away and leave this all day. You don't have to stir the contents. So if you walk runs long dinner is still ready when you get back.
If you wanted to take the moisture management to another level, you could put it outside (plugged in, of course) and release what heat and steam there might be out there.
If you are traveling in the mountains the time-saving will be even more substantial.
The biggest issue is its size. My Instant Pot comes in a nice box that is 12x12x13. I plan to carry it in the back of the truck.
I'm not aware of any electric pressure cookers smaller than this one. It has a working capacity of 4 liters of groceries. As the directions explain you need some head-space in the pot. There are some <3 liter stove-top pressure cookers, which have many of the same advantages, but are not a fire-and-forget-it appliance.

Some usage notes:
Browning: It has a “saute” setting that lets you brown in the bottom of the pot. While plenty hot it is about 8” diameter and it takes a long time to brown a pound of meat. I much prefer to brown in a cast-iron pan and dump results (deglazing the pan) in the pot. It is much faster to do this, also it is much easier to clean cast-iron than anything. Also, the Instant Pot has a bright stainless finish which I don't want to scour. If you do the browning in another pan and the Instant Pot is just used for stewing it cleans up very easily and well with no need to scrape it.

Some recipes call for flour or corn-starch to thicken the sauce. Leave this out initially and add it after the cooking is done. Otherwise this stuff settles to the bottom of the pot and burns. It is the only thing I've burned.

Serving: Like a crock-pot it is a pot within a heater. There is a locking lip to it so that it seals with the lid. If you drop gravy into the locking lip it is hard to clean out (but by no means impossible). So when I'm ready to serve, I grab the inner pot with hot-pads and pull it out of the heater. That way, if I slop a bit it isn't into the heater or lip.

The recipes warn that hot spices, such as in chili, come out hotter in a pressure cooker. I find this to be true and I would halve your heat until you get it calibrated. The other seasonings seem not to need adjusting.

Speaking of calibration. I don't know the Instant Pot's original language, but its not English. There are some pretty odd sentences in the instructions. The pot is marked in liters (which are correct) and cups (which are not).

The Instant Pot claims 14 settings, or something like that, but these are all I've ever used:
Saute to either brown meat or onions or to warm up the pot quickly, while adding ingredients.
High Pressure cooking for which I manually set the time to cook.
Keep warm which occurs automatically after the pressure phase.

I've done about a dozen crock-pot, soup or stew recipes and my current rule of thumb is a little less than half the upper time suggested in the recipe. That is, if it says 1-2 hours I give it 50 minutes of pressure cooking. This cooking time does not count the warm-up time and the cook books seem to under-estimate this. A big chunk of cold meat in cold liquid can take 40 minutes to reach cooking temperature. If you are going for a walk this doesn't matter. If you want to hurry things up boil the water on the stove while you are chopping vegetables and/or microwave the meat before tossing it in.

I hardboiled six eggs and they all peeled like a charm. These were some farm-fresh eggs from a friend and I have not tried this with store eggs.

I haven't done just pasta in it. I don't think it will save any time, but should much reduce the steam. I did raw chicken in with rice and seasoning. It was done in 10 minutes, but the seasoning was very bland and was the closest thing to failure I've had in my little pot.

There are two vents on a pressure cooker. One is a sort of clattering thing that chugs a little steam before it locks up. The other is the relief valve which you close to cook or open to vent. It is impossible – and you shouldn't try – to open the lid until the relief valve is open and no steam is venting.

thanks

[AWCHIEF]

In the past week I have successfully cooked a whole chicken, meatloaf, oatmeal, rice, spotted dick and turned half the chicken into chicken noodle soup in my Instant Pot. It has quickly become my most used appliance.

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by AWCHIEF

In the past week I have successfully cooked a whole chicken, meatloaf, oatmeal, rice, spotted dick and turned half the chicken into chicken noodle soup in my Instant Pot. It has quickly become my most used appliance.

Alright; what in the H is "spotted dick" and what does it taste like?

[Al and Missy]

I used ours for the rice to accompany the Crawfish Etoufee samplers at Canopener. I have made soup, pork chops in Hong Kong onion gravy, a pork roast, lemongrass chicken, and several other dishes.

It eliminates the need for supervision (of the food) while cooking. Supervision of the cook is another story.....

Al

[The Colonel]

We have one too I got it for my wife just before Christmas we took it on a trip and she used it several times the good things that we see is that it can replace several other things and it cuts down cook time.

[AWCHIEF]

Originally Posted by gypsydad

Alright; what in the H is "spotted dick" and what does it taste like?

Spotted Dick is a traditional English streamed pudding/cake made with molasses and raisins. Taste delicious. You can find it in some grocery stores in cans. YouTube has several video recipes.
I have also made brownies from mix a couple of times. I add cream cheese. Comes out something like a cheese cake. Still working on the secret formula for that one. It needs a bit of tweaking.
My favorite so far has been Ribs. 18 minutes cook time with 10 minute NPR. Remove from pot, slather on BBQ sauce and stick under the broiler for 8 minutes each side. Delicious.

[Lily&Me]

I've about decided I need to have one of these, and can then eliminate my crockpot and hot plate.

Now, if it would only toast...

There are a couple of different models out there...is there any real difference between them?

Maggie

[AWCHIEF]

Lots of good info here, specs, recipes, etc.

http://instantpot.com

They also have a very active Facebook page. " Instantpot Community"

[Lily&Me]

I found a 5qt one on eBay, chili red , new, free shipping, at a great price.

Goodwill will get my crockpot and hot plate.

Maggie

[gypsydad]

Originally Posted by AWCHIEF

Spotted Dick is a traditional English streamed pudding/cake made with molasses and raisins. Taste delicious. You can find it in some grocery stores in cans. YouTube has several video recipes.
I have also made brownies from mix a couple of times. I add cream cheese. Comes out something like a cheese cake. Still working on the secret formula for that one. It needs a bit of tweaking.
My favorite so far has been Ribs. 18 minutes cook time with 10 minute NPR. Remove from pot, slather on BBQ sauce and stick under the broiler for 8 minutes each side. Delicious.

Never heard of "spotted dick" before...sounds interesting, as do the other dishes you mention.
I am seeing both 5 and 6qt electric cookers, in various brands price points on Amazon. With primary meals being for 2 people in my case, I am concerned about size for storage. Any comments from users of various brands with "experience" on which one is a good bang for the buck is appreciated. I want to join the "pressure cooker crowd"!

[Lily&Me]

I'm cooking for one these days , and have never owned a pressure cooker, but I like the versatility of these and their high marks from users, so am giving it a try.

Hard to find a 5 qt, which still seems a bit large, but I don't think it will take up any more room than my crockpot and hot plate are doing.


Maggie