Instant Pot. Multi-function cooker (Part 5)

[Shelby]

9 minutes ago, rotuts said:

I got these beauties test. at the local farmers market :

 

 

like the dummie I am , I only bought one bunch !  hope there will be more next week

 

Id like to iPot them pressure-steam  in a basket  after a light peel and a large chop.   I dump the tops

 

' Hip ' suggeest  4 min pressure steam ,  for ' sliced ' and 8 min for whole , natural release.  I don't plan on slicing them on the thin side

 

but thick side.   Id like the cooked but ' firm '

 

suggestions ?

Beautiful carrots!  I'd pressure steam for 5 mins and natural release for 10--that way you can check and see if they are done enough.  

[Anna N]

Hmmm.  Since it will take the same amount of time to cook one carrot as to cook all of them, I would be tempted to test the timing with a single carrot,  cut as you wish, and err on the side of less time for this test carrot. 

 

[rotuts]

Ive decided to lightly peel

 

cut in 1/2 , than large Julienne the 1/2's

 

Ill undercook them by a bit , then cook and vac-bag and freeze w a little butter

 

Ill use the in Jan during a snowstorm , and finish the cooking in butter + a little TJ's dark agave syrup

 

if they end up tasting as I hope they might ,

 

Ill clean the stall out !

 

and do the same for the Winter.

 

 

[Anna N]

 

 Potato, egg and tomato salad (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) mostly made in the Instant Pot. I cooked the small marble size potatoes and the large eggs together on low-pressure for five minutes with a 10 minute slow release. The potatoes were just a little overcooked. They were much smaller than those that I usually find in my grocery order.  The ones that are twice or three times this size should work out just fine. This is a non-mayonnaise-based potato salad which I quite enjoyed. 

 

[MelissaH]

18 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 Potato, egg and tomato salad (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) mostly made in the Instant Pot. I cooked the small marble size potatoes and the large eggs together on low-pressure for five minutes with a 10 minute slow release. The potatoes were just a little overcooked. They were much smaller than those that I usually find in my grocery order.  The ones that are twice or three times this size should work out just fine. This is a non-mayonnaise-based potato salad which I quite enjoyed. 

 

We have a bag of the marble-sized potatoes. I was thinking that I'd parcook them and then smash, season, and crisp them to use like croutons in a potato soup tonight. You think maybe in a steamer basket, 5 minutes with quick release? Or less time with a 10-minute release?

[Anna N]

 

18 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

We have a bag of the marble-sized potatoes. I was thinking that I'd parcook them and then smash, season, and crisp them to use like croutons in a potato soup tonight. You think maybe in a steamer basket, 5 minutes with quick release? Or less time with a 10-minute release?

 If you are going to smash them then five minutes with a 10 minute release should do just fine. I would’ve preferred them with a little more bite in a salad. 

[kayb]

The IP and I made 14 4-oz portions of highly concentrated ham stock. Pressure cooked yesterday's ham bone for two hours last night, then left it on slow cook overnight. Fished the bone out and picked off the meat today, while running the stock through three saute cycles with the lid off to reduce it. It's currently in the freezer in the silicone baby food freezer containers; in a day or two, or when I think of it, I'll pop them out and transfer them to a gallon freezer bag. A couple of them ought to flavor up a pot of bean or split-pea soup quite handily.

 

[Okanagancook]

First time trying bowl in bowl rice. 

2 cups basmati, washed

1.5 cups water

And a whole bunch of East Indian spices for my pilau

Put into an 8 inch cake pan then into the Instapot on the rack and filled with 1.5 cups water.

Turned out perfect:  6 minutes high pressure with 10 minutes natural release.

[Ann_T]

On 06/11/2017 at 4:31 PM, Okanagancook said:

First time trying bowl in bowl rice. 

Your rice turned out perfect. 

 

Beef Stew tonight cooked in the Breville Pressure Cooker.

 

The beef cooked in 18 minutes, did a quick pressure release and added the vegetables (potatoes, onions, celery, carrots and green beans and PC'd for 8 minutes. Another quick release and then topped the stew with dumplings and simmered for 15 minutes in the same pot, on the saute low setting.

(Moe's plate. I don't do carrots)

 

[MelissaH]

On 11/6/2017 at 10:56 AM, Anna N said:

 

 If you are going to smash them then five minutes with a 10 minute release should do just fine. I would’ve preferred them with a little more bite in a salad. 

Five minutes with a 10-minute release was perfect.

This was inspired by a post Google found for me but went off the rails early on: marble-sized potatoes were pressure-steamed for 5 minutes followed by 10-minute release to parcook, then smashed. I left the sugar and salt out of the lemon-dijon sauce, and tossed about 2/3 of the sauce with the smashed potatoes on the sheet pan. Broccoli florets got dumped onto the other half of the sheet pan and tossed with the rest of the sauce. I salted the potatoes more heavily than the broccoli, slid the pan into a 350 °F convection oven for 10 minutes,  stirred the broccoli but didn't touch the potatoes, spun the pan around, and put it back in for another 5 minutes. I then grated gruyère on the plate just before serving (no parm on the sheet pan or anywhere else).

 

It was a winner. The potatoes were good, but I'm thinking about a whole tray of the broccoli roasted with the sauce as a Thanksgiving side.

[Ann_T]

Tried a couple of more meals in the PC.

 

Today's breakfast. 

I had a small Pork Sirloin roast that I had presalted yesterday morning.

Was going to roast it this morning but then decided to try and "roast" it in the PC.

 

Seasoned the roast with fresh garlic, lots of black pepper and dried herbs, sage and rosemary.

Browned the roast in cast iron pan. Removed from the pan and then sauted an onion cut into quarters. Deglazed the pan with chicken broth and added the contents to the PC.

 

Put the rack into the pot. Put the roast in the little steamer basket and set it on the rack.

 

The programme for meat without bone was 40 minutes. I knew that 40 minutes would be way to long for the size of the roast so I reset it for 32 minutes. The setting was for natural release.

Meat turned out perfect. Tender but still held together so it could be slice. It was closer to the flavour of roast pork than I expected it to be.

 

Used the strained cooking broth to make a gravy. Started with a roux. Gravy was seasoned with a little more sage and rosemary and Dijon mustard.

 

 

Yesterday's breakfast.

I promised Moe my chicken pot pie and decided to make it for breakfast.

 

Shortcut - cooked the chicken breasts and the vegetables in the Breville PC to save time and an extra step or two. Made a roux using some of the chicken broth, heavy cream and seasoned the sauce with more fresh thyme. Baked it in my cast iron skillet. Topped with a commercial butter puff pastry.

 

The setting on the PC for chicken is 20 minutes at a reduced pressure. But I was sure that would be too much so I adjusted the time to 15 minutes. Next time I will adjust a little more. I think that 10 to 12 minutes would have been long enough. I would have liked the vegetables to be slightly underdone. They would cook more in the pie while it bakes. Other than that, I was really happy with the way it turned out.

 

[quiet1]

Made pork carnitas tonight. Turned out really well - we used pork butt steaks because we didn't want the size of pork butt that they had, and I used timing for a pork butt and I think it was a bit too long (the meat has that texture from being extra-well pressure cooked) but it's very successful. And it didn't take too long, so it's actually reasonable to do without too much advance planning.

 

I'm wondering about keeping the broth in the freezer and using it next time. Any reason not to? I'm not sure what else I'd do with it.

[Smithy]

I'm very pleased with the yoghurt I get from my 3-quart mini- Instant Pot.  I don't get consistent results - sometimes the whey is quite clear, as in this photo of my latest batch, and sometimes there are obvious solids in it when I believe I've done everything the same way.  Eventually I'll get around to taking notes. Either way, the results are delicious.

 

 

Many thanks also to @kayb (and others, I think) for recommending the Eurostrainer.  It's just the ticket.

[JAZ]

On 11/14/2017 at 7:09 PM, quiet1 said:

Made pork carnitas tonight. Turned out really well - we used pork butt steaks because we didn't want the size of pork butt that they had, and I used timing for a pork butt and I think it was a bit too long (the meat has that texture from being extra-well pressure cooked) but it's very successful. And it didn't take too long, so it's actually reasonable to do without too much advance planning.

 

I'm wondering about keeping the broth in the freezer and using it next time. Any reason not to? I'm not sure what else I'd do with it.

 

We do that -- freeze the broth and use it again. Works great.

[quiet1]

11 minutes ago, JAZ said:

 

We do that -- freeze the broth and use it again. Works great.

 

Excellent. I just got a good deal on more pork so I will probably chuck it all in tomorrow and just top it off if needed. Everyone really liked it so might as well get more use out of all the flavorful components, right?

[ElsieD]

Today the Instant pot mini 7-in-1 is on sale at Amazon.com for $51.99 and Amazon.ca for $67.99.  This is a Public Service Announcement!

Edited November 20, 2017 by ElsieD
Fixed typos (log)

[Smithy]

Yet another reason to like the Instant Pot: the liner pot can be used as a sous vide vessel for small packages, without needing a hot pad. 

 

[Mmmpomps]

Tried a new to me method for roast beast: Eye of round seasoned and sauteed on all sides in the Instant Pot. Add 1/2 cup of water, Manual high pressure for 4 minutes. Leave for one hour. Turned out a lovely medium rare. Made gravy in the Instant Pot for the Man. Spuds were 25 min manual high for whole potatoes. Green beans sauteed in butter and garlic.

[Anna N]

@Mmmpomps

 Wow. That makes me want to rush out and buy an eye of round. 

[Shelby]

10 hours ago, Mmmpomps said:

Tried a new to me method for roast beast: Eye of round seasoned and sauteed on all sides in the Instant Pot. Add 1/2 cup of water, Manual high pressure for 4 minutes. Leave for one hour. Turned out a lovely medium rare. Made gravy in the Instant Pot for the Man. Spuds were 25 min manual high for whole potatoes. Green beans sauteed in butter and garlic.

What an excellent idea!

[Ann_T]

13 hours ago, Mmmpomps said:

Tried a new to me method for roast beast: Eye of round seasoned and sauteed on all sides in the Instant Pot. Add 1/2 cup of water, Manual high pressure for 4 minutes. Leave for one hour. Turned out a lovely medium rare.

 

Wow, I wouldn't have thought to do beef that I wanted to be rare, in the PC.   Was the roast sitting on the rack above the water?

This is probably a dumb question, but was the beef tender and the  texture of the meat similar to roasted? 

 

[kayb]

I, too, was curious about tenderness and texture. Sure is pretty, though. I love to slice leftover rare eye of round in thin slices, marinate it in a mixture of red wine, olive oil and oregano, and then use it in sandwiches. Little restaurant in Memphis does the, serves with lettuce and olives, and calls it "Greek beef." It's habit-forming.

[Beebs]

Whoaaa nice eye of round!

 

How big was the roast? 

 

Hmmmm...this would be a good candidate for that reverse sear method. Putting this on my list!

[Mmmpomps]

1 hour ago, Ann_T said:

 

Wow, I wouldn't have thought to do beef that I wanted to be rare, in the PC.   Was the roast sitting on the rack above the water?

This is probably a dumb question, but was the beef tender and the  texture of the meat similar to roasted? 

 

Hi Ann! 

I sauteed the roast in the pot directly, no trivet when cooking...1/2 cup of liquid. I was pretty shocked how it turned out too. I used an eye of round the outside slice was a bit tough but the rest was nicely tender. Not sous vide tender ...but a good oven roast tender. 

I'll do it this way again for sure. 

[Mmmpomps]

26 minutes ago, Beebs said:

Whoaaa nice eye of round!

 

How big was the roast? 

 

Hmmmm...this would be a good candidate for that reverse sear method. Putting this on my list!

 

The Man brought home a huge roast I just cut it up...so this was a little guy , I didn't weigh it : /