Buying a pressure cooker

[LakeFlyPie]

Have been inspired by the current pressure cooker thread and decided that this is what I should have instead of a slow cooker.

Have (almost) convinced myself that I need a Kuhn Rikon model

Would be grateful for any advice justifying an expensive purchase about pros and cons of buying budget vs top of the range models and also good PC recipe books.

TIA

I have had a cheap tower pressure cooker from argos - cost about £20 for the last 2.5 years - it has been excellent and I have no complaints at all! I use it most weeks as a pressure cooker and also the large pan size is useful for cooking other things - best use I have found is when I want to cook a large amount of rice - it takes such a short amount of time! I don't know what the advantages are of buying a really expensive circa £95 one - I know some allow you to vary the pressure etc, but I really havn't found a situation where that would really help - I have cooked whole chicken in mine, for example with the pressure as it is, and it comes out lovely! (ok so it is booiled rather than roasted, but it keeps all the flavour and you get a great stock/base for gravy) I have yet to try pressure cooking then roasting for chicken as has been recommended to me but I am wholly satisfied... :)

When I bought my WMF Pressure Cooker my main criteria were that it was very simple to operate, and very safe with no hissing weights or other scary stuff that I remembered from the past. It's listed at £96 on Amazon so that probably makes it upper-end price-wise, but I've been very happy with the results and it has definitely calmed my nerves around the things. I went for the bigger capacity of 6.5l with the reasoning that I would usually be cooking things in bulk for the freezer.

I have two - a huge Fagor (bought in NYC when I still had a housekeeper) - have never tried it but she used it almost daily for 3 years and liked it. I can't open the lid and can't be bothered to look for the manual. Before that, I had a cheapo Brazilian and it broke in a year. Currently, I use a nifty Scandinavian OPA Eco system that has a pressure cooker top and two different pots (they can be used as regular pots as well) - 3 litre and 5.5 litre. I use the 3 litre model a lot more, daily-weekly, the bigger one perhaps once every 2 months (family = 2 adults + 2 small children). Pressurizing the big one takes a lot more time and also the minimum recommended amount of liquid is huge - so bigger is not necessarily better.

I'm very happy with mine but might buy a Kuhn Rikon if I was looking for a new one.

I bought the Prestige for, I think, £50. I looked at Kuhn Rikon but I liked the old style brushed aluminium look of the Prestige compared to the shiny (not for long, I felt) KR. I looked carefully for a size that would be right for my family of 3, with occasional cooking sprees if 10,000 guests come round.

Prestige were very helpful when my partner threw the instruction book away! [growling emoticon]
I expect I will be impossible to part from it as soon as I have figured out the finer details of pressure cooking!

Thanks for all the replies - must admit I'm feeling less decisive after reading the reviews on Amazon.
Definitely want stainless steel 5-6 litres I reckon.
Either quality control (particularly at Prestige) is variable or there are some really fussy buggers out there.

At least I've decided pressure (fast) is the way to go rather than slow

Will keep researching

I've got the WMF same as chil1234. My dad bought it for me as a present, I had no idea it cost so much! It's fab, totally not scary but the instructions are a bit difficult to read. its so nice and big that I use it without the lid to make jam.

I got the Jamie Oliver electric pressure cooker off Amazon, twas a xmas pressie but think its about £100. Its great you can brown the meat and set it off and it does it all automatically ......

I have two Kuhn Rikon ones which are great - a 7 litre and the enormous 12 (I think) litre.

I got it on the recommendation of Miss Vickie - if you google, you'll find the site which is full of fab instructions & recipes as well as tips on what to look for when you're buying a pressure cooker.

I think Fagor are supposed to be good too.

I'd make sure that whatever you get, you can get replacement parts e.g. rubber pressure seal easily.

I hardly use mine now and have switched to slow cooking for the time being, but only because I've a toddler which makes it hard to monitor cooking times etc.