Making Meals with Pressure Cookers

Fast, Nutritious and Energy Efficient

Pressure cookers are a great addition to the kitchen. They are a culinary life saver when there's nothing thawed for dinner or the pantry is bare.

Unlike the old cookers that spit and hissed as they boiled on the stove, the newer models are quieter, safer and energy efficient.

What is a Pressure Cooker?

A pressure cooker is a large cooking pot made of aluminum or stainless steel. On the underside of its lid, there is a gasket that seals the lid and the pot together during the cooking process so that steam builds up inside and escapes through small valves on the top of the lid.

How Pressure Cookers Work

As the cooking liquid boils inside the pressure cooker, the trapped steam causes the internal temperature to rise. This cooks the food more quickly and helps to retain most of its nutritional value.

Foods That Can be Cooked In a Pressure Cooker

Entire meals can be prepared easily by simply browning meat in the pot, adding a starch such as potatoes or grains and a liquid (do not try this without following a recipe written specifically for pressure cookers).

Soups, stews and desserts can also be prepared in a pressure cooker but beans and legumes will require presoaking first.

Why Buy Another Appliance?

Fabulous Foods.com presents the following reasons for purchasing and using a pressure cooker:

• Pressure cookers are energy efficient. They use less gas or electricity because the food cooks more quickly with a higher internal temperature. Also, they do not heat up the kitchen as much since the steam remains inside the pot.
• There is less mess when you cook with a pressure cooker and the kitchen stays cleaner.
• Food cooks up to 70% faster than with traditional forms of meal preparation and is more nutritional.

Resources for More Information

There are many good websites and cookbooks dedicated to pressure cookers. Fabulous Foods and Miss Vickie both offer information about multiple types of pressure cookers, tips on safety and creative recipes. Amazon.com has a complete line of cookbooks for beginning and advanced chefs as well as various models of pressure cookers for purchase.