Instant Pot. Multi-function cooker (Part 2)

[kbjesq]

13 hours ago, br3wster said:

Another failed attempt at poached eggs tonight. I bought these 4oz ramekins to use. Buttered them, put 2 in the IP with a cup of water, and set it to steam for 3 mins then did a quick release. They still came out hard boiled.

 

I've also failed with a 2 min/high pressure/QR run using slightly bigger ramekins.

 

I have the IP-LUX50, fwiw. Any other ideas? 

I use smaller ramekins, one large egg fills them nearly to the top. 2 min on HP,  quick release. They come out perfectly cooked to my taste (soft, but cooked through whites + very runny yolks) 

My guess is that it is the size of your ramekins that is affecting the outcome, but that is just a guess

[MelissaH]

I have beef stock going in mine now: 3 pounds of crosscut beef shanks, a couple of chunks of beef femur bone, onions, carrots, a couple of big squirts of tomato paste, celery, peppercorns, bay leaves, and water. I took Kenji's shortcut (from a stew recipe, IIRC) of just browning the beef on one side, thus continuing @Anna N's theme of saving energy. The kitchen smelled delicious during the initial browning, but now I can't smell it anymore.

[mgaretz]

Sweet and Sour Cabbage Borscht.  Made in the Cuisinart version.

 

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

1 14.5 oz can of tomato sauce

1 cup water

1/2 to 1 tsp of sour salts (citric acid)

3 tbs sugar

1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

2 lbs stew meat

1 medium onion, cut into 8ths

1 small head of cabbage, cored, cut into 3" sized pieces, separated

1 pound of carrots, cut into one inch pieces

 

Mix everything in the pot, no need to brown the meat.  Cook on hi pressure for 12 minutes, natural pressure release.

 

 

Edited January 22, 2016 by mgaretz
forgot the carrots! (log)

[Anna N]

 

 

Must be the blizzard south of the border!    Stay safe.  Sauerkraut soup in the Instant Pot but I was a little heavy handed with the hot paprika.   Kielbasa, onions,  potatoes, stock, sauerkraut, tiny Napa cabbage that was lurking in the refrigerator, Worcestershire sauce and Hungarian paprika. Thought very seriously of throwing some kimchi in there but decided there were enough flavours going on.  Soup function for eight minutes then natural release for 10 minutes.   Some sour cream  would have been a nice addition and halfway through eating it I opted for a spoonful of labneh. 

[Deryn]

This post says what I intuitively thought might work for broccoli in the IP: http://icantbelieveimadethat.blogspot.ca/2016/01/how-to-steam-fresh-broccoli-in-instant.html ... and that is 0 minutes steam, quick release. Hope you added some stock and perhaps a touch of cream and/or cheese and at least have a nice pot of broccoli soup now, Anna.

 

oops .. I think I replied to a very old post by mistake. My bad. I thought I was on the last page.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Deryn (log)

[cta]

I've tried the 0 minutes steam method (using the low pressure setting) for broccoli and it works like a charm. Steam, quick release, shock in cold water = bright green and crunchy broccoli.

[ElsieD]

Made a recipe from the pressurecookingtoday site for Chicken Enchilada Pasta.   I wanted a one pot dinner and this looked to fill the bill.  It was surprisingly good.  One thing I found a little odd was that it called for green olives, and I thought about leaving them out but in the end I didn't.  

 

[Smithy]

Chicken Enchilada Pasta sounds a bit like cognitive dissonance to me, @ElsieD.  It looks good.  Did you like it enough to make it again?  What were the ingredients?

[ElsieD]

Yes, it sounded a bit odd to me to.  But what was appealing was the fact that everything went into the pot uncooked.  I only had to sauté the onion and garlic then everything else went into the pot.   Cooked on high presure for four minutes and a couple of minutes on sauté after that to finish cooking the pasta.  Ingredients were onions, garlic, tomatoes, taco seasoning, enchilada sauce, raw cubed chicken breast, water and pasta.  After it was cooked it was put into a square 8" baking dish and topped with 8 oz. grated Cotija and stuck under the broiler for a couple of minutes.  Optional toppings were green olives (wasn't sure about those but they worked), fresh tomatoes, cilantro and green onions.  As weird as this sort of was, yes, I would make this again.

 

[blue_dolphin]

I used the Instant Pot to make the risotto-like Herby Green Chile version of the Creamy Rice and Beans in Three Classic Flavors from More Mexican Everyday and was once again impressed with how quickly and easily this sort of rice dish comes together in the IP.

The recipe includes directions for using a rice cooker or a pressure cooker and it can be found online here. I followed the PC directions and thought the arborio rice was perfectly cooked.  I used the Green Chile Adobo sauce and it added just a pleasant bit of tongue tingling heat.  I will certainly make this again and look forward to trying the other variations as well.

Photo over on the Dinner thread.

[Shelby]

I had an egg failure.  Instead of my silicone cups (which are hard for me to use...they aren't quite big enough  need to find like cupcake size) I used my ramekins.  We were having breakfast for dinner so I ultimately would be doing 3 ramekins worth.  I hadn't used these ramekins before so I decided to do a test before dinner using one grocery store egg (I don't like to waste my eggs from my wonderful girl) and it worked perfectly.  3 mins on steam, qr.  Stupid me......3 ramekins at once do NOT work well.  Eggs were hard boiled.  Sigh.  

 

On another note, Ronnie wanted me to make some goose and noodles out of the leftover SV goose that we had.  I started to drag out my big stock pot and then thought DUH, use the IP!  So much faster and very good.  I meant to take a picture but I forgot and it's already on the way to work with one of my crock pots (I wouldn't allow him to take my IP  )

 

 

[Anna N]

 That is very puzzling Shelby. It really shouldn't make any difference how many eggs you did so long as all the other things stayed the same. 

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

 That is very puzzling Shelby. It really shouldn't make any difference how many eggs you did so long as all the other things stayed the same. 

See, that was my first thought when I tested just the one....but then I thought maybe the density of the ramekins caused more heat???  I dunno.   I've done 2 eggs at a time in the silicone and they were perfect. 

[MelissaH]

My beef stock (which cooked for 75 minutes on high pressure followed by natural cooling) turned out wonderfully gelatinous and with great flavor. I parceled it into one-cup packages of beef jelly, which I've frozen for later use.

 

And then yesterday, I did a batch of soup: another shank, onion, celery, mushrooms, thyme, and barley, high pressure for 40 minutes, natural release. The meat after the stock was pretty tasteless, and fell completely off the bone. The marrow was also gone from the hollow of the bone, presumably in the stock. But in my soup, the meat was still mostly attached to the bone and I pulled it out as a single unit. I tasted the meat and found that it still had flavor so I shredded it off the bone (which was easy to do) and returned it to the soup. We have probably two lunch-size servings left, which will either get eaten for lunch this week, or bagged and stashed in the freezer for later.

 

I have chicken thighs to use tonight, and am trying to decide what to do with them!

[kayb]

Used the IP tonight to make Spanish rice (after I boiled the chicken for the chicken enchiladas, thus creating the chicken stock I needed to make the rice) My recipe calls for a 2:1 ratio of liquid (a combo of chicken stock and pureed tomato and onion) to rice. Despite the rinsing and sauteeing, the rice was still sticky, rather than separate and dry like it is when I cook it in the oven after the liquid is added. I think I'll try with a bit less liquid next time, and maybe use basmati instead of regular long-grain, and see if that makes a difference.

 

[kbjesq]

On 1/26/2016 at 0:21 PM, Shelby said:

See, that was my first thought when I tested just the one....but then I thought maybe the density of the ramekins caused more heat???  I dunno.   I've done 2 eggs at a time in the silicone and they were perfect. 

I've done 4 eggs in ramekins, using 1 cup water.  Pressure cook (not stream)  for 3 minutes for runny yokes. Add 1 minute if you like the yokes more firm.  Definitely use quick release 

[kbjesq]

9 minutes ago, kayb said:

Used the IP tonight to make Spanish rice (after I boiled the chicken for the chicken enchiladas, thus creating the chicken stock I needed to make the rice) My recipe calls for a 2:1 ratio of liquid (a combo of chicken stock and pureed tomato and onion) to rice. Despite the rinsing and sauteeing, the rice was still sticky, rather than separate and dry like it is when I cook it in the oven after the liquid is added. I think I'll try with a bit less liquid next time, and maybe use basmati instead of regular long-grain, and see if that makes a difference.

 

Did you wash the rice really well before cooking? If so, I agree you probably need to reduce the total amount of liquid. Also for what it's worth, my Cuban relatives require that I use medium grain rice for arroz con Pollo,  and the rice still comes out fine - nice and separate - as long as I rinse it extremely well before adding to the other ingredients.

[kayb]

I rinsed it, but I may not have rinsed it well enough. May have been a combo of the two. When I made basmati rice the other night, I used 1.5:1 liquid:rice, and it worked fine. Different rice, and the liquid was water, but I think a big part of it was the liquid volume.

[Anna N]

So I came across a recipe for making a crustless quiche in the Instant Pot and of course it caught my imagination. I really didn't have very much in the house that I would normally put into a quiche but I did have two links of Italian sausage. These I took out of the freezer and pressure cooked them for 10 minutes. When they were cool enough to handle I took them out of their casing and broke them up. The rest of the recipe that I adapted for my use called for half a cup of milk, six eggs and a cup of grated cheese.  I greased a one and a half quart casserole (the recipe called for a 1 quart casserole) and poured the mixture in topping it with the cheese. I covered the dish loosely with foil and made a sling out of foil. I put the trivet in the pot along with one and a half cups of water and cooked on high pressure for 30 minutes.  I let it cool down for 10 minutes before releasing the rest of the steam and opening the lid.   I was pleasantly surprised at what I found.

 

 

 

The first slice went the way of all for slices from a deep dish like this but the second slice came out rather well. 

[rotuts]

AnnaN

 

variations in ingredients aside, would you make quiche that way again ?

[Anna N]

3 minutes ago, rotuts said:

AnnaN

 

variations in ingredients aside, would you make quiche that way again ?

I definitely would. But I might also consider pouring the contents into silicone muffin cups and making individual quiches which would work better for me as a solo diner. 

[kayb]

I made an Instant Pot discovery the other night. I discovered one can cook basmati rice on the "rice" cycle and it comes out fine even if you forget to put the gasket back in the IP.

 

Flashes an error message, but it turned out ok. Go figure.

[Anna N]

 

 Not terribly photogenic. I adapted a recipe from Cooking Light. Butternut squash, apple and chicken stew.  It was very sweet and I did not think my son would enjoy it but he polished off a very large bowl and was happy to take leftovers home. The recipe calls for both sage and ginger but I omitted both.  I also reduced the liquid is called for and mashed some of the vegetables instead of using flour to thicken the broth. I elected to cook for 15 minutes  at high-pressure with natural release. This was too long as the vegetables had almost disintegrated. Next time I might try for six or seven minutes. 

[Shelby]

I forgot to make note of a recent use of the IP.  I bought tamales from a place in Texas.  I put them in the IP (still frozen) for 5 mins on steam and quick released them.  Best tamales I've ever had.  They were not at all dry live I've encountered before.

[Tere]

Mine should arrive tomorrow! Pretty excited, it will take up the cupboard space currently filled by my ancient ancient pressure cooker that barely pressurises and I only use for soup once in a blue moon, so that seems like a very good trade off given all the other things it can do (I don't have a slow cooker, rice cooker or yogurt maker either). The old pressure cooker will go to the cart barn for dyeing experiments.