We’ve ordered an Instant Pot

[CruCru]

Do you have one? What do you like to make in it?

I used to have a slow cooker, which was great for making stock and mulling wine.

i reckon you would struggle Ilove I am much taller, and only see fully into mine because it is on a trolley which is narrower than the worktop.

You could do any sautee-ing in a normal pan on the hob and transfer stuff over, but it does defeat the object of it all being in the one pan I guess.

My butter chicken was delicious and the rice was a farking triumph...I can cook anything ...eclairs, make my own puff pastry, swiss rolls...anything! ...but rice is my nemesis, so unreliable AND THIS was light, fluffy, not broken and claggy, or sticky and sludgey!

Hoorah!
I''d post pics but for some reason googlephotos cannot find them on my phone today!

Just wish they weren't so expensive

I e bit the bullet mine is coming tomorrow I won’t need to borrow my dad’s and return quickly because he can’t live without it. Need to start searching for recipes now. Plan on using it a lot

Thanks He and Ms - appreciated!

Well I bought a Pressure King on Monday all excited and i've been too scared to use it yet! I've got the ingredients for one of my usual risotto recipes and i'm building up the courage to try it for the first time!

Thank you Copercabana for the risotto method there - do you use your usual amount of liquid?

Two times volume of rice for pressure cooker risotto. Remember that if you add any veg - especially if frozen - that will generate liquid under pressure. If it's too wet, just sauté for a couple of minutes with the lid off afterwards.

Wonderful thank you!

I basically did that and put it on for 6 minutes. It was still a bit liquidy so I tried to put it on for another 2 minutes but screwed up the pressure valve so it didn't work properly but I turned it off and it turned out fine. Despite my efforts not because of them!

I've had an instant Pot for a couple of months - have made fantastic macaroni cheese which I normally avoid because I hate all the pans and faffing, lentil curries and the occasional chicken thing. It does all taste excellent, and is definitely making me more creative in the kitchen. One question - I have noticed that sometimes steam pours out of the vent handle knob thing when it's getting up to pressure, even when the handle is firmly turned to sealed. It doesn't seem to affect the outcome but it's a bit alarming. Any thoughts on why this may be?

Just reporting back on the chutney - it was a success and very easy, I just used saute function and turned it to keep warm if I needed to lower the heat. The aim is to see if I can get rid of my preserving pan which takes up a lot of space. I would say though, if I hadn't been able to do it under the extractor fan (I had it on the glass lid of my gas hob) it would have stunk the house out with the vinegar and onions.

What's the best cheesecake recipe??

Tolstoy, how did you do your macaroni cheese? (there's a sentence I never thought I'd say!)

I am thinking about how to speed up my cheesy pasta bake recipe..

It's soooo good! Mine is a cheaper pressure cooker but amazing. Anyone on Facebook follow feisty tapas. Great IP community

www.dadcooksdinner.com/pressure-cooker-macaroni-and-cheese/

I use this recipe. So good, and so quick - don't be tempted to skip the hot sauce, it really makes the difference. It uses much less cheese than standard macaroni and cheese.

Thanks!

Qq can you freeze food you have cooked from it?

of course you can. Why would it be different to any other cooked food?

@Tolstoy, it's quite normal for steam to pour out while it's coming up to pressure. The pressure cooker works by having a sealing valve, which seals the cooker once it's up to the required pressure. All the time it isn't at pressure, steam will leak out. As soon as it's at the right pressure, the pressure will force the sealing valve up into the seal, and push it shut, which will stop steam escaping. At that point, the food officially starts cooking, and your timer can start counting down. Once the time finishes, the cooker will stop the active cooking source and switch to a 'keep warm' mode, which will naturally start to reduce the pressure in the pot. At that point, you can either flip the valve to release the steam (taking care to make sure you don't get burned, especially if you have lots of liquid, or stuff that might splutter inside), or you can just let the steam naturally dissipate.

Ok, good to know - was worried the seal was loose and all the steam was leaking out.
Now if someone can help me with rice...followed the instructions in the manual and it was a bit soft and sticky. We don’t eat much rice so I haven’t tried before but it was the first big disappointment of the Instant Pot which has otherwise been great.

We do equal quantities of rice and water, but we rinse the rice before we put it in the pot. So my steps would be:

Measure rice in cups (if I've weighed it, I just shove it in the IP cup afterwards to see how many cups it is).

Rinse it in a sieve and drain it. Then put it in the IP.

Put same no. Cups of water in IP. Add 1tsp salt.

Press rice button.

That gets me lovely, fluffy rice.

One thing you must do, is make sure you stir it all, so that the rice and water is level and you don't have mounds of rice in one area before you start cooking, because it isn't going to boil in the same way as a pan.

i think the actual rice setting is the lower pressure one, so watch your timings..also the rice cup is not the same size as a normal cup so again watch for that if you are converting recipes/water quantities

you can do rice on normal setting, but it will need less time than the rice setting

you can also do it PIP (pot in pot) ....I am a bit hazy on this BUT think you need liquid in the IP pot, rice in a bowl with equal quantity of water and sit that bowl on a trivet. I did mine over the butter chicken and was totally winging it but it worked!

Are there any UK YouTube videos for recipes? Only ones I can find are US

I just search you tube, there are loads of uk based ones !

Can you cook the pasta with the Bolognese?

I’m tempted, but lots of the recipes either have American ingredients or contain dairy (tinned cream of chicken soup has come up a lot in my googling). Is there a UK recipe site or blog that has a sort by allergen’ option?