To tell you all about my Instant Pot electric pressure cooker?

[lougle]

In ridiculously sad excited. I got given an Instant Pot Duo 60 for Christmas and it is utterly fantastic!

I cooked a cheesecake in 25 minutes. It's delicious. Then I pot roasted a 2kg joint of beef in 45 minutes -beautifully tender and still just ever so slightly rare in the middle.

I have a massive gammon, I am tempted to see if it will fit.

Swede was done to perfection! And I braved QPR. Thanks Lougle.

Love this thread.

Keep the recipes and timings and add-on item tips coming. Marvellous stuff.

lougle, I have just ordered the Silit basket. Which one is the best out of the two that you have got or is there nothing in it?

That's fantastic saltedcaramel!

claig they're both great. The only advantage of the solid metal one is the separators.

Today I made ricotta cheese

Thanks, lougle.

Have you got a picture of how the pot in pot works? Does it go on the trivet?

I didn't make the ricotta pot in pot. But yes, you simply put the pot you are cooking in on top of the trivet inside the instant pot pot. People in the IP community use cake tins to cook lasagna, for example!

Thsnks

Sooooo tempted. But how is it for slow cooking? I use my slow cooker about 4 times a week as I like to set it off in the morning and have dinner ready at a moments notice if the toddler starts a meltdown. Or is the pressure cooking so good you don't need to slow cook?

The pressure cooking would do that. You could set it to cook in the morning, then it will just flip into 'keep warm' mode for the rest of the day. Or you could set it at 9 am with a 6 hour delay, which tells it that you want to be able to eat it at 3pm - it will calculate when to start cooking and do it automatically -then from 3pm it will flip into 'keep warm'......it really is amazing.

Guests were mightily impressed by cheesecake and there were seconds (and some thirds) all round. So I think that can be counted a success

I used a tip from this recipe - she puts a sheet of kitchen towel between the pan and the foil in order to absorb any moisture that gets in and stop it making the crust soggy. Worked brilliantly.

Tomorrow is yoghurt day. I cba with all the dinky little pots that the Facebook users keep posting and cooing over, besides I'm going to strain it, so am going to make it in the main pot. Will probably lob it in some sterile jars afterwards.

Just out of interest, everyone seems to wang on about scorching (pasteurising) the milk before making the yoghurt, but surely in the UK milk is pasteurised already so it's pointless? Any idea if I can get away with not doing it?

Scalding, not scorching. FFS. Brain is in neutral at the moment. Sorry.

Excellent - found you all again!

I'm trying another cheesecake this week and more chicken and rice soup. Will also try a chicken teriyaki thing ice seen on the Facebook site and maybe a sausage and lentil nigella thing....

Oh - and I made a great creme caramel last week

How crazy is the Instant pot FB community? Some people take it very seriously, almost cult-like in worshipping it. Puts me off a bit. I don't want a whole new meaning to life, just to try out quick new cooking.

I think you can take as much as you like from the group and leave the rest.

My cheesecake from a couple of days ago is not great. I used my ricotta but it does change the texture and I prefer the dense texture. Also, I forgot to wash my ring, so there is a vague meaty after tone. The children haven't noticed it, but I've got a very sensitive sense of taste and even DH acknowledged it.

I'm wavering on whether to buy this....is it really as good as you are all saying? Will I get the use out of it? The idea of proper meals much faster is very appealing.....

I can barely afford it, but it sounds great. What to do?

ooohhhheemmmmmgeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I ordered mine at 8.30 today! ...will it be here soon?? will it?? when will it be herrrrrrrrrrrrrre???

Also, I forgot to wash my ring, so there is a vague meaty after tone.

Ziggy it really is this good

ScrambledSmegs - hooray! A couple of days max!

Thanks lougle but I think it was Tondelaya who was asking

Just bought this book - 80 recipes for your pressure cooker. Was leafing through it in a bookshop and liked a lot of the recipes, which are for a modern UK audience. Obviously it's for stovetop pressure cookers not electric, but I think it will be quite adaptable.

The only thing is some of the recipes call for cans of tomatoes. Is it ok to mix in the tomatoes if it's not the only liquid in the pot? Or should I dollop them on top and stir in afterwards?

I've hit an issue.

I decided to do a loose version of Boeuf Bourguignon today. I watched the Flo Lum vid and improvised a little. I had streaky bacon. Coated beef in flour and sauted with oil. Shallots. I deglazed with a ready casserole stock. Put water in and then potatoes and carrots. It keeps overheating and bits from the deglaze or the stock stick to the bottom. I have opened it 3 times and stirred bottom and added more water and eventually red wine in the hope it would thin it all out.

Unfortunately, it is still doing the overheating alarm when it comes back to pressure.

Is there anything I can do to rescue this tonight? I wouldn't use flour again to saute meat. Will I thin it out more? Could I just a layer burn at the bottom and eat the unburned lot?

My standards have fallen a bit as I want a dinner on the table.

The alarm has gone off now and it is continuing to cook. I'll leave and wait to see what happens.

Ive just used mine to do the first stage of a batch of marmalade. I moved to a separate preserving pan for the main boiling as the instant pot is too small for the sugar. However, it is the quickest batch of marmalade I've ever made and tasty too.

Instant pot marmalade

1kg Seville oranges
2kg granulated sugar
1 lemon

Place whole oranges in instant pot with juice of 1 lemon and 1 litre water. Cook 15 mins at high pressure. Use Natural pressure release.

Remove oranges with slotted spoon. When cool enough to handle halve the oranges. Scoop out the pips and add to the water remaining in instant pot. Then slice the peel thinly or thickly as preferred. Place peel in a clean preserving pan.

Using sauté on the instant pot boil the pulp, pips and water for 5mins. Strain the pulp and water into the preserving pan with the peel. Discard the pulp. Bring the contents of the preserving pan to the boil. Lower the heat and add the sugar. Stir until dissolved. Bring to the boil until a set is achieved. This is much quicker when the fruit has precooked in instant pot. It only took me 10-15 min.

Pot into sterile Jars.

It made 10 small Lakeland jars worth.

That looks interesting, whats4. I suppose you could half the amounts for fewer jars. Is a preserving pan very big to allow for the hot sugar bubbling up? I'm using a whiskey marmalade at the moment, so going to finish that first!

My (sort of) boeuf bourguignon was very nice in the end. The streaky bacon was a little bit caught (had no lardons), but other than that it was a very nice dinner. I would never have managed a 2 and a half hour oven casserole dinner this evening. All plates clean and seconds, too.