ePressureCooker

My guess is if you used a conventional beef stew recipe in the pressure cooker, it probably wouldn't come out well. There's a couple of things you need to adapt. First, you need to reduce the liquid by about a third. There's far less evaporation inside a pressure cooker, therefore you don't need as much liquid. I usually will add a teaspoon or two of beef base to compensate for any lost beef broth I would have started with, depending on the volume of the meal. Second, if there's any alcohol in the recipe, you need to reduce that as well. I would probably start with 2 tablespoons at most, and see how that is. (You can always add more after pressure cooking, and just let it boil for a few minutes to get rid of as much of the alcohol as possible.) Third thing is, pressure cooking can dull some herbs and spices. I would add any fresh herbs in at the end, after pressure cooking. And although Jane Sass recommends increasing spices by a third before pressure cooking, I actually "bloom" them instead, that is, saute them for a minute in a little oil, before adding the rest of the ingredients and putting the lid on. Blooming the spices increases the fragrance and the taste, and IMHO, compensates somewhat for any dulling of the spices pressure cooking may do.

You probably already know this, but someone else reading might not, but use natural pressure release on the lamb shanks. ;D

Heartsurgeon, Jane Sass recommends that when cooking beans, you don't force pressure release, she says it can tear the skins off the beans or otherwise harm them. She recommends letting them depressurize naturally for 15 minutes, then manually releasing the pressure. So she confirms what you've already discovered yourself. ;D ETA: She adjusts the cooking time accordingly, calculating that 4 minutes of depressurization is equal to 1 minute of pressure cooking time.

I can't speak to the second and third issues, since I don't have definitive, personal knowledge, but I will say that depending on the restaurant, if you read their recipes, you'll easily find out why they're not afraid to give their recipes out. For example, I love one of the desserts that Boulevard put in their cookbook. But start reading it, and its basically a one or two day project. Its a helluva lot of steps, and a lot of work. Not so much of a problem if you have a kitchen staff, much more problematic for the home cook. Most people are unwilling to go to those lengths for a dessert, and will shrug their shoulders and decide its easier to go down to the restaurant and order it instead. If anything will convince you that an "overpriced" dessert isn't really overpriced, its seeing all the work that goes into it. As to your first question, you have to be really careful about that. For example, one of my favorite bread books is The Italian Baker. Within the last couple of years they released a "revised" edition, with some revisions and "new recipes". I compared a library copy of the new version against the old in a good amount of detail. Now I didn't read every line of every recipe, so I don't know how much revising was done to the recipes, and they added some color photos which was nice (the old version had nothing but the cover, IIRC), but some of the recipes were "renamed" which makes it harder to figure out what's new and what's not. And there were precisely TWO new recipes in the book, no doubt there were TWO so they could honestly claim there were "new recipes" (plural). Is it worth paying full price for an updated version, that's highly dependent on individual circumstances. If I were trying to build a cookbook library, and cost were a factor, I'd buy the older version in a heartbeat. BTW, if you're building a library and concerned about cost, recommend you check out BookCloseouts.com -- they sell remaindered cookbooks that retail stores have returned to the publishers, and the publishers need to get them off their shelves, so they mark them and sell them into the remainder market. They are new, though they probably have been handled in the bookstore, but usually new cookbooks (at least the ones sold in great numbers) will show up there a couple of months later, once the stores have stopped promoting them. Hungry, there's an easy way to make notes, if you're using Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac. Open up your ebook, and wherever you want to leave a note, right click, and the menu will ask you what you want to do, and you can highlight, you can add notes, etc. I have peppered my ebook copy of The Flavor Bible with highlighting and notes, and I *love* the fact that I can run a computer search if I can't find something alphabetically.

I've seen a similar thing to your kale chips recipe done with swiss chard / beet leaves as well. And I can also speak personally to the salt reduction issue PV mentioned: I've really tried to reduce my intake of commercially prepared food to virtually nothing. Gave up fast food, rarely buy anything pre-made, virtually no canned goods - they're all full of TONS of salt, often low fat or low calorie products are the worst offenders, because they compensate for the lost flavor from fat by adding more salt. An occasional can of enchilada sauce, some canned broth here and there, that's pretty much it for me at this point. At first, I craved salt. Boy, did I crave salt. But after a while, I grew far more sensitive to salt - if I tried to eat cheetos, OMG, they are almost unbearably salty. Before, they tasted completely normal to me, now, damn salty. This is how I know when I'm being good on the salt front or when I've been lapsing, if I taste a commercial product and don't think "Geez, that's incredibly salty!" then I know I need to get back on the salt wagon. My taste buds give me all the clues I need to know how good I've been (or not been) on the salt front lately.

I was going to post this warning after I started reading this thread, but you conveniently have asked the very question I have an answer for. I have personal experience of this: my father planted a bay leaf tree (not sure which kind, but he bought it from a nursery, so I'm assuming its an edible kind) in his back yard, so we have regular access to FRESH bay leaves. I made bean with bacon soup for him in the pressure cooker, and since fresh herbs are usually less strong than dried ones, used several leaves instead of one before I pressure cooked. Big mistake. Very bay-leafy mistake. I should have googled it first. Unlike most herbs, where dried are stronger than bay leaf, bay leaves are FAR stronger fresh than dried. Lots more. Even though they'd only been pressure cooked with the soup a few minutes, my good old pressure cooker had extracted tons of bay leaf flavor into the soup. I had to double or triple the beans so we could eat it, and even then we ate it only because of my father's apparently high tolerance for bay leaf flavor. Since then, if I want to use fresh bay leaf, I use less than the called for amount of dried, and even then, I don't cook it for long periods in the dish, and certainly don't pressure cook it, I just dip the leaf in, let it swirl around for a few minutes on "simmer" and then immediately take it out. Its easy enough to dry the leaves, however, even without a dehydrator. I clean them off, then lay them on a wire rack for a few days, maybe a week, then put them in an empty glass spice jar, lid off, for a while longer. They've quite lost that massive punch after a couple of weeks, and I use them like normal commercially dried bay leaves.

Gotta disagree with you there, I can easily make much better than Campbell's chicken noodle soup in my pressure cooker. ;D Oh? I'm sure your pressure cooker soup would be better in the absolute sense but there's no beating the plonking of that can of stuff + water into a bowl in the microwave when you're tired or cranky or sick or "just feel like it". Did you get a chance to have a look at the "soup thread(s)" ? I have started looking at it, but its a lot to go through, especially with multiple parts going back years, so I'm not finished yet. But both these threads are giving me ideas, many ideas.

Gotta disagree with you there, I can easily make much better than Campbell's chicken noodle soup in my pressure cooker. ;D

Hmmm...what kind of pork bones are used for the broth for the hakata style ramen, do you know?

Chickarina, huh? I confess I had to google that one. What kind of meat are the meatballs made of? My dad would probably like that - he loves just about anything with meatballs in it (and yes, I already make albondigas soup, although I feel the broth I make needs a little more oomph).

I have a number of standard soup recipes that I tend to use over and over again, but I'm looking to expand my repertoire, and expand the number of meals where I serve soup. So I thought I'd ask here for some ideas. So what are YOUR favorite kinds of soup? (And if its something possibly unfamiliar, please share a few details!) Thanks!

My sister has just started buying grass fed beef (that's essentially organic, but they can't label it as such because of the prohibitive cost of certification) by the 1/4 or 1/2 of the cow. Maybe that's how they're selling through the less desirable "prime" cuts - if its grass fed, just label it like that and make your money that way.

Oh yeah, I love cooking turkey thighs and drumsticks in the pressure cooker. Not only are they nice and tender (without having to brine them beforehand), but it makes it so much easier to pick the meat off the bones. Below was last night's dinner. I made French onion soup in the pressure cooker, then did the crouton and cheese in the oven.

You could be right. It was, after all, a long time ago, and he's remembering stuff he ate as a teenager. And he ate it at Sanborn's, in Mexico City, so I'm reasonably sure it wasn't Tex-Mex, but real Mex. (Or at least fusion Mex) And if I try the recipe that was given, it has ingredients that the other recipe didn't have, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc., that would probably affect the ultimate taste a reasonable amount, and detract from the tomatillos.

Well, he liked it enough to order it repeatedly as a teenager, and he was happy enough when I told him I was making them for him the first time, so I was trying to make him even happier with something closer to the original. Note, bechamel was not his word, it was mine, based on my quizzing of him, he said white sauce, cream, cheese, and I extrapolated (perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly). I asked whether there could have been "green" from chiles instead of tomatillos, and he was less positive on that score, but he didn't think there were a lot, certainly not enough to give the enchiladas a "green" tone.

That isn't the recipe I used, and it looks good, but my father swears up and down that the original from Sanborns during the 1950s did not contain tomatillos. He said it was more like a bechamel sauce. If I can't find a closer recipe, I may just make a bechamel and put some roasted garlic etc. in it and see what he thinks.

I've used the BBQ and the smoker plenty of times in the past, but when people start talking about fires and 800 degree temperatures, I get a little antsy. Which is far better than snide.

It's not as bad as it sounds, as long as you are ready. I like high-heat grilling. I do not like char, but I do like meats well-browned. I can't get that fast enough in my oven. To avoid a fire, you could put a cast iron skillet over the coals. I did that one time to make smashburgers (awesome) and the temp was around 800 degrees. You might be able to get it hotter burning some wood. I'm not sure how hot my stove burner gets, but it doesn't matter because at that temp the smoke would set off every smoke detector in the house and would splatter fat everywhere. Better to do that outside in the yard.For a large roast, I'd think a blowtorch would take too long. Plus, I don't get good results with one. Plus plus, you can get flames with torches too. ETA: and what would your fur balls be doing that close to the meat? I meant more along the lines of we have furballs that come into the kitchen. The dog (a chocolate lab) is easy enough to spot, or hear, and knows at least when I'm the only one in the kitchen, she is not allowed in it. She has to wait outside the door, and isn't allowed in. The cats are more problematic - they usually come in very quietly, and sometimes startle me by rubbing up against my legs (I'm the can opener, as well as the cook, so I'm very popular). One time, and thankfully only one time, the big male cat decided to jump up on top of the stove to try to help himself to the hamburger in the skillet. He's never done it before, and fortunately I had turned the heat off and he wasn't hurt, but he's not very bright, and I worry he could decide to try it again. He also has a tendency to get excited about the smell of meat cooking, and has a bad habit of running right in front of my legs, back and forth, sometimes tripping me. (Like I said, not bright.) I could shut the doors to the kitchen, but no matter how many times you tell people around here, they don't remember to keep them shut, so I can't depend on that, either. And then of course, with the smell of meat cooking in the house, there's always the possibility that the two cats, who HATE each other, and who don't particularly like the dog, might congregate immediately outside the kitchen, like circling sharks who smell the chum, and startle me by getting in a loud fight or knocking something over. All not good when dealing with a torch.

I have tried this. It might just be my oven, but it never browns to my satisfaction before the inside gets too hot (an overcooked inside is a travesty). What I did last year was smoke to temp at about 225 and then put the roast directly over hardwood charcoal "propped up" to about 1/2 inch or so below the grate (I use the Weber baskets designed for indirect to prop up the coals). It will start a fire instantly, so you got to have the lid ready and your sh*t together, but man was it good! Stay away from anything that will burn. All that fat smoke rivaled the wood smoke for flavor.Interesting. I don't know if I would be brave enough to use the BBQ at the end, given your description re fire, but presumably, one could pan sear the outside of the meat at the end, instead of using the oven on high heat or the barbecue. You can get better results using a blow torch rather then pan searing at the end. I dont have a link but ad hoc at home used a blow torch at the end to get that nice crust without over cooking the outer edges of the prime rib. I don't know that I'm brave enough to use a blow torch, either, especially not with furballs in the house.

I know you already threw what you had in the trash, but if you've "learned to dislike [cilantro] less lately, you might want to test cooking with it in future. Takes on a totally different taste when cooked, for example if you made chile verde...

I have no idea what part of the growing conditions would purportedly change the taste, perhaps you should consider changing the brand of cilantro you planted, or the brand of fertilizer you use. Was this used fresh only? Have you tried cooking the cilantro as well, perhaps making a salsa verde with it?

Can anyone here recommend a good enchiladas suizas recipe, as authentic as possible? I made a recipe from Saveur a few months ago for the parents, and while my father said they were good, they weren't authentic. (That recipe had tomatillos in it, I looked at it beforehand and thought it looked like a regular green enchilada recipe with cream added, but you never know, so I went ahead and tried it.) My father would know: his family lived in Mexico City during part of the 1950s, and he actually ate the original enchiladas suizas at Sanborns repeatedly, so I have a high bar to meet here. Can anyone make recommendations?

I have tried this. It might just be my oven, but it never browns to my satisfaction before the inside gets too hot (an overcooked inside is a travesty). What I did last year was smoke to temp at about 225 and then put the roast directly over hardwood charcoal "propped up" to about 1/2 inch or so below the grate (I use the Weber baskets designed for indirect to prop up the coals). It will start a fire instantly, so you got to have the lid ready and your sh*t together, but man was it good! Stay away from anything that will burn. All that fat smoke rivaled the wood smoke for flavor.Interesting. I don't know if I would be brave enough to use the BBQ at the end, given your description re fire, but presumably, one could pan sear the outside of the meat at the end, instead of using the oven on high heat or the barbecue.

The most important part, to me, is: "Sub-Commandment i: The Perfect Prime Rib must be cookable without the use of heavy or specialized equipment, including propane or oxy-acetylene torches, sous-vide machines, or C-vap ovens." :-) I'm not quite sure if you meant to link to my post, or the one below mine, because as far as I read, there was no heavy or specialized equipment, sous vide, torches or C vap ovens (although I'm not quite sure exaclty what the latter is). The "sub-commandment" I quoted was in the link you referenced: i.e., http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/12/the-food-lab-how-to-cook-roast-a-perfect-prime-rib.html I did indeed approve of the "requirement" that there be "no heavy or specialized equipment, sous vide, torches or C vap ovens". Did you read the whole thing through in the link you quoted? Apologies, I misunderstood your post. Yes, I did read the whole thing, albeit not recently.

I don't have a pressure cooker, and am not considering getting one. I was hoping to get some more info re: steaming vs boiling. Thanks! As I said, steaming would be my choice between steaming and boiling. They absorb much less water, retain much more potato flavor, in my opinion.