Instant Pot. Multi-function cooker (Part 2)

[Anna N]

A riff on Hazan's braised celery and tomatoes from The Healthy Pressure Cooker Cookbook by our own JAZZ (Janet Zimmerman). As suggested on Food 52 I topped it with an egg and it made a satisfactory lunch.

As an aside don't let the word "healthy" in the title of Janet's book lead you to think it's all about fat-free this, sugar-free that and similar nonesense. She subscribes to the idea of moderation, a varied diet and few or no processed food. What is great about it is that many of the recipes are designed for two. I am looking forward to trying more dishes from this book.

[blue_dolphin]

I have just re-read all 22 pages of this thread and made notes which reference back to the post nos. of the items I am interested in. There were quite a few, all very helpful......

 

I just did the same - what a wealth of helpful information!  A big thank you to all contributors!  

 

My IP starter list (after plain water):

• Rice
• The mac & cheese that Anna N made from this site
• Beans - I saved the handy Rancho Gordo bean list.  I have not been a fan of PC beans in the past, but I liked the Deborah Madison suggestion that RG passed along to cook unsoaked beans 20' in the PC and then 20' with the lid off.
• Grains - I made some wheat berries recently that took a long time to cook and would like to replicate that recipe in the IP
• Edited to add:  the whole pumpkin à la hummingbirdkiss
• Kenji's Pressure Cooker Ragù Bolognese - this one will require some shopping so not sure how long it will take me to get to it

And of course, RIBS! 

Edited November 29, 2015 by blue_dolphin (log)

[kayb]

The Instant Pot arrived this morning (Amazon's Sunday delivery still weirds me out). Won't use it today, as I am sous viding a rump roast, but may very well use it tomorrow, and certainly this week.

 

Need to re-read this entire thread, as well as the recipe/instruction book. Will also take a look at the book rotuts referenced.

[cyalexa]

Back down to 78.50 on Walmart.com.

[ElsieD]

Kayb, it took me about 3 1/2 hours to read through the thread in its entirety. There is so much good information in it. I am particularly keen to make the mashed potatoes, cook hard boiled, poached, and eggs cocotte, mushroom soup, pork belly, whole squash, and champ. I also want to print the temperature reference in post # 550 and the timing chart post #41. It is interesting that blue_dolphin and I both read the thread today and came away with a different list save Hummingbirdkiss's whole pumpkin, except I will do squash. Oh, and I guess my very first thing will be water!

Rotuts, the pressure cooker books I currently have are Miss Vickie's Big book of Pressure Cooker Recipes, The Everything Healthy Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Laura Pazzaglia and Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna Sass. I need to take a look at the cookbook Anna N referenced by Janet Zimmerman. The reason I have for wanting an Instant Pot cookbook is because I probably won't have a clue how to adapt the recipes in the books I currently have to the Instant Pot. Maybe it is not as complicated as I expect it to be?

[rotuts]

EliseD:

 

the 'Hip' book I think is better than 'everythingHealthy' its a later book.

 

Ive looked over the books you've mentioned from the library.  nothing wrong with them I think

 

after reading the Hip web site , and sorting out that time chart  ( its a tiny bit opaque re IP's )  its easy to adapt Rx's

 

I don't think its going to be complicated once you get going.

 

I do suggest a notebook to keep track of things, hopefully  a Red one

 

but as AnnaN has demonstrated :  its more important what you put in the notebook than the colo(u)r of its cover.

[rotuts]

prices at TheWall seem to have going up :

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/46700670

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Stainless-Steel-6-Quart-7-in-1-Multi-Functional-Pressure-Cooker/45918917?action=product_interest&action_type=title&item_id=45918917&placement_id=irs-2-m2&strategy=CAL1&visitor_id=LPGhh21DHqfLnvlpCS6Nw0&category=&client_guid=5c2718f8-454f-4e4d-8b31-d5f462e8916d&customer_id_enc=&config_id=2&parent_item_id=46700670&parent_anchor_item_id=46700670&guid=354541c4-ff17-4876-b689-9b54df66b20f&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&beacon_version=1.0.1&findingMethod=p13n

 

I can't for the life of me tell the difference between the 'newest one' and the one below it.

 

you can scroll down on either of these pages and see a comparison chart

 

if your eyes are more Eagle Like than mine, Id like to hear about the differences.

[Martin Fisher]

prices at TheWall seem to have going up :

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/46700670

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Instant-Pot-IP-DUO60-Stainless-Steel-6-Quart-7-in-1-Multi-Functional-Pressure-Cooker/45918917?action=product_interest&action_type=title&item_id=45918917&placement_id=irs-2-m2&strategy=CAL1&visitor_id=LPGhh21DHqfLnvlpCS6Nw0&category=&client_guid=5c2718f8-454f-4e4d-8b31-d5f462e8916d&customer_id_enc=&config_id=2&parent_item_id=46700670&parent_anchor_item_id=46700670&guid=354541c4-ff17-4876-b689-9b54df66b20f&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&beacon_version=1.0.1&findingMethod=p13n

 

I can't for the life of me tell the difference between the 'newest one' and the one below it.

 

you can scroll down on either of these pages and see a comparison chart

 

if your eyes are more Eagle Like than mine, Id like to hear about the differences.

 

$104.97??? 

How did you find that? 

"LATEST MODEL Instant Pot IP-LUX60-ENW Stainless Steel 6-in-1 Pressure Cooker with Mini Mitts" $75.00 and "free" shipping as of 7:35PM, 11/30/2015.

 

 

Source: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Instant-Pot-IP-LUX60-ENW-MM-Stainless-Steel-6-in-1-Multi-Functional-Pressure-Cooker-with-Mini-Mitts/46700672

[rotuts]

Lux  not  Duo :

 

http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=instant%20pot

 

one hint :  no amount of sale should get any one to get silicone Mitts.

 

just saying.

[Martin Fisher]

Is there something seriously wrong with the LUX model?

Seems like a good price too me, I haven't seen it that low elsewhere today.

[Martin Fisher]

Looks like Wal-Mart and Amazon currently have the DUO for the same price. A cursory search doesn't yield a better price elsewhere.

[kayb]

I went ahead and ordered the HIP book, too. Just for good measure.

[rotuts]

no

 

it has a very different top.

 

you will have to look into the difference.

 

the duo top is newer and might have different safety features.

 

i can't say anything about the rest.

 

http://instantpot.com/benefits/specifications-and-manuals/

 

on the video for the newest one  some of those newer lid features were discussed.

Edited December 1, 2015 by rotuts (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Reporting my Instant Pot curriculum progress.  Not too much to glean here, as the heavy lifting has already been done by earlier posters.  The only thing that might be new is my test of a single serving of brown rice, using a dish inside the IP.

• ​Rice - based on this post that Anna N pointed to on the IP blog, I used the little rice cup that comes with the IP, measured 1 cup of jasmine rice, washed the rice and added it to the IP with 1 cup of water.  Same ratio as I use with my ancient rice cooker, which came with a similar cup.  Pushed the "rice" button and allowed the pressure to release naturally.  RESULT:  perfectly acceptable white rice.  I was initially concerned as the IP is a good bit wider at the base than my rice cooker, which has a more tapered bowl so the rice was barely covered by the water but the result was fine, although there was a layer of rice stuck to the bottom of the pot.
• Grains test 1- This is sort of a cheat because instead of the planned wheat berries, I used TJ's Brown Rice Medley (brown rice, black barley, daikon radish seeds) so it's still sort of rice.  To avoid the sticking issue I had with the plain rice, I placed the rice and water (same 1:1 ratio and volumes as above) into a pyrex bowl.  I put the bowl, uncovered, on the trivet in the IP and poured 2 cups of water into the bottom of the IP.  This time, I used the manual setting, high pressure, 23 minutes at pressure, followed by slow release.  RESULT:  Perfectly satisfactory.  Like most brown rice products, it has a bit of a "chew" but that's to be expected.  Handy to be able to take the dish out of the IP, all ready for serving.
• Grains test 2- small volume.  I decided to test making just a single serving of the same product.  I measured 40ml of the TJ's brown rice medley, washed the rice and placed it into a small Corningware dish with 40ml of water.  I placed the dish on the trivet in the IP and poured about 2 cups of water into the bottom of the IP.  Same cooking parameters as above.  RESULT:  Perfectly satisfactory.  Would I do this often?  I  dunno.  I usually cook 1 cup of rice and do something with the leftovers but it's good to know I could go with a single serving if I want. 

Below, on the right is the full cup of brown rice medley cooked in a pyrex bowl.  On the left is the small volume test (40ml rice + 40ml water) ready to be placed on the IP trivet for cooking.  The small volume cooked up perfectly.

• mac & cheese that Anna N made from this site.  I made 1/4 of the posted recipe. With the smaller volume, I put the ingredients into a pyrex bowl as I did above.  As Anna N reported, the macaroni was not cooked after 4 min at high pressure so I gave it 2 more min at pressure.  The cheese melted fine when I switched to the sauté function although I was working with more of a double-boiler situation than direct heat.  Once the cheese was melted, I removed the pyrex dish from the pot, added the panko and broiled it in the Cuisi toaster oven.  RESULT: I'm not a big mac and cheese hound, but this was fine.  I might play around with it to make a broccoli mac and cheese sometime.

• Beans - Earlier in this thread, Rancho Gordo passed along a Deborah Madison suggestion to cook unsoaked beans 20' in the PC and then 20' without pressure so I thought I'd try it.  I usually cook unsoaked beans in a low oven, after bringing them to a boil on the stove top.  I'm happy with that method but there have been times during the summer when I wanted beans without running the oven for hours.  In previous tests, I thought PC beans tasted like canned and I didn't like them much.  For today's test, I used 1 lb of Rancho Gordo Yellow Indian Woman beans with my usual amount of water, salt, bay leaf, garlic and del arbol chile.  

 

 These were cooked for 20 min at high pressure.  I did a fast pressure release, although that was a mistake, should have been slow.  Then I had to play around with the settings to get a nice slow simmer and found that the slow cooker setting, adjusted to "More" with a regular lid on the pot was just right.  This batch ended up getting more than the intended 20 min simmer as I was fussing with the settings.  RESULT: They are a bit overcooked but really just fine beans and most important, they taste nice and bean-y, much better than canned! Good to have this method available for summertime bean salad making.

 

 

Next up on my curriculum are the following lessons, though I may switch things up.

• the whole pumpkin à la hummingbirdkiss
• Kenji's Pressure Cooker Ragù Bolognese - this one will require some shopping so not sure how long it will take me to get to it

 

[Anna N]

blue_dolphin,

Thanks so much for your careful notes. I must look up Kenji's recipe and see what is involved. I am just waiting for the right time and occasion to try a couple of desserts.

[rotuts]

BD  thanks for your input

 

looking forward to the Ragu evaluation.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I can't speak to that book

 

I get the 

 

Hip Pressure Cooking book:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Hip-Pressure-Cooking-Fresh-Flavorful/dp/1250026377

 

Ive used this extensively , the copy from my library

 

the into section is well written and tell you all you need to know about PC and Electric PC

 

the web site is nice.   there is a page there on times for various items, but its a bit difficult to figure out

 

as the web site covers both stovetop PC and IP.s

 

Ive made a few Rx's from the book for simple things  

 

they worked fine.

 

however, for better results on things that might require several ingredioents

 

I rely on eG's Own  : AnnaN

 

surprised.gif

 

You are aware that the Hip book is written by eGullet's very own, immensely helpful, pazzaglia?

[rotuts]

You Betcha !

[rotuts]

I thought Id review what i learned with recent Turkey Experiments.

 

these are the IP portion 

 

I have an upright freezer, and in the past, space available, i got a lot to 22 - 24 lbs Turks at the Market Price to get you into the

 

store for, " all the trimmings "

 

I then 'processed them '   [ed.: is this guy ConAgra ? ]  

 

by de-boning them , roasting i.e. baking the carcass etc and using the meat for SV.

 

Chill, freeze, save.

 

this year I went to Target  ( Tar-Jay ) with my trusty new Chip'd card for another reason

 

they had Plump Fz Turkey breasts for $ 0.69

 

/monthly_12_2015/post-68597-0-28463800-1449074873.jpg' class='ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image'>

 

note the cleaver and the mallet.   the red knife above is from Granton, England, and a joy.  no chopping with that !

 

in the past I used to use the oven to roast the carcass of a 22 - 24 bird, but its Roto.

 

so I broiled ( that still works ) the bones and got this :

 

 

I then added this to the IP   :

 

 

I pushed the 'Soup' button 

 

then I got this in the IP:

 

[ed.: plenty of time for Hydration ]

 

 

I then took out the bone/meat  and teased out the meat .  I of course  tasted the meat and it was delicious. not dry not

 

completely extracted  of its flavor.

 

 

I added this to the IP Pot and seasoned it  

 

a 2 -3  drops of RedBoat 40, a bit of Fz garlic from TJ's  Dorot and a good amount of 'Fresh'

 

ie purchased now   ( their stuff it at its peak for Thanks and Christmas )

 

Bells Seasoning.   I used a stick blender and there it was

 

this  pre- thickened was used as 'stock' for the various stuffing I made later.

 

that Ill post later.

 

Sooooo   what did I learn ?

 

if you chose to use the 'Soup' button. then meat in there is not dry, still as a lot of flavor

 

the up /down side, well. you can run around the block a lot of times

 

or Refresh YourSelf

 

the IP leaves that Up to You

 

the Soup button, not used by we, but well studied above but by AnnaN et.al.

 

is an outstanding feature of the IP

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2015 by Smithy
Corrected photo per member request (log)

[ElsieD]

EliseD:

 

the 'Hip' book I think is better than 'everythingHealthy' its a later book.

 

Ive looked over the books you've mentioned from the library.  nothing wrong with them I think

 

after reading the Hip web site , and sorting out that time chart  ( its a tiny bit opaque re IP's )  its easy to adapt Rx's

 

I don't think its going to be complicated once you get going.

 

I do suggest a notebook to keep track of things, hopefully  a Red one

 

but as AnnaN has demonstrated :  its more important what you put in the notebook than the colo(u)r of its cover.

Before I read this I got a message from Amazon as I had asked to cancel the book I ordered and have it replaced with the Healthy Pressure Cooker Cookbook. They said to send the one I didn't want back and they would be happy to process the new book as a separate order and ship it next day with free shipping. So I took them up on it. Book arrived today but have not really looked at it yet. Maybe I will put Laura's book on my Christmas list. I also purchased a notebook but they did not have any red ones. So mine is black in colo(u)r. BUT it has 5 tabs on the side which may prove useful.

[rotuts]

""" 5 tabs """

 

sweet.

[kayb]

Taking my IP on its maiden voyage tonight. Beef stew. Will report.

 

ETA: I just checked Amazon to send the link to a friend who is interested. While on the listing of different models the LUX shows $104 and change, when you click on it, it comes up for $75. In case anyone is waiting to pull the trigger.

Edited December 3, 2015 by kayb (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Continuing my Instant Pot curriculum, I moved on to Kenji's Pressure Cooker Ragù Bolognese from Serious Eats.  This was a good recipe to test out the sauté function, PC and sauté again at the end.  

I've never cooked a ragù Bolognese.  I rarely cook any meat at all so just procuring the ingredients was a novel experience.  The recipe uses 1/2 lb pancetta, 1/2 lb chicken livers, 2 lbs of ground beef, 1 lb ground pork.  Here are my ingredients:

I spent $23.70 on the meat and gelatin.  Everything else was on hand.  Not an inexpensive operation.  There was supposed to be some fresh basil added at the end but I forgot to buy it so there is none. 

 

The recipe said the chicken livers were to be "finely minced."  Mincing fresh chicken liver is sort of like mincing snot.  Kenji has another recipe where the chicken livers are blended with an immersion blender.  I might have preferred that hands-off method, although it brings a bit of a bass-o-matic imagery to mind.  Sorry, that bit of post-vegetarian commentary has nothing to do with the IP itself.

 

The Serious Eats article associated with this recipe mentions adding the wine and letting it reduce completely before adding the tomatoes, stock w/gelatin and cream but in the recipe itself, the stock/gelatin, wine, tomatoes and cream are all added together and there is no mention of reducing the wine.  I followed the recipe but maybe should have followed the article and reduced the wine first.  When I finished the PC step, it looked like a pot of steamed meat immersed in a lot of liquid.

 

It ended up reducing OK and within the 30-45 min timeframe the recipe suggested.   The end result was quite acceptable.  

 

Using the PC reduces the simmer time from anywhere between 2-4 hrs depending on the recipe to 30 min but it's still not a quick recipe.  While it was tasty enough, I thought the ground meat had the taste and texture of boiled meat.  Maybe the fault of the PC or perhaps my choice to omit the wine-reduction step contributed to that result.  Or maybe this is the nature of this sort of meat sauce.  I should probably try a non-PC method to see what result I get.    But it won't be happening for a while as I've got a LOT of sauce on hand now (lasagne anyone?....) and no big desire to spend $23.70 on more meat.

 

Kenji said that he tested the recipe in both a stovetop PC and an electric PC (the Breville Fast-Slow Pro) and mentioned being in the midst of some epic pressure cooker testing, saying, "stay tuned for the results," so perhaps we will see more PC cooking on Serious Eats or in an upcoming book.  

[Anna N]

Thanks for this, blue_dolphin. After checking out the recipe I was pretty sure that not only would I need a second mortgage but just finding the chicken livers locally would be a challenge. I suspect my cost would be at least half as much again as yours! And Bolognese ragu is not high on my "must have" list. Still the recipe itself interests me so I may succumb should I ever spot some chicken livers!

[Shalmanese]

Thanks for this, blue_dolphin. After checking out the recipe I was pretty sure that not only would I need a second mortgage but just finding the chicken livers locally would be a challenge. I suspect my cost would be at least half as much again as yours! And Bolognese ragu is not high on my "must have" list. Still the recipe itself interests me so I may succumb should I ever spot some chicken livers!

 

The chicken livers are not essential, they are there to add a background note and deepen the sauce but it's preferable to make it without them than to not make it at all. Plus, things like chicken livers turn up in odd places if you take the effort to look. After all, every chicken has one and they have to go somewhere. Ask the person you buy your meat from and they'll probably be able to point you in the right direction.