Pressure Cookers - love them or hate them...

[lightningxl]

Old pressure cooker that granny used were tempermental and scare - hatefully things. Modern pressure cooker safe and not too steamy noisey or scary bits.

With the lid off great heavy pan for deep frying

(DO NOT DEEP FRY WITH LID ON UNDER PRESSURE or SEAL WILL BLOW AND TURN YOUR KITCHEN INTO A DISASTER AREA BE WARNED)

With seal on use water / stock to cook and preserve flavour quick to.


Love my pressure cooker - mainly use it for rabbit i've shot save time boning out meat and creates a great stock for pies / stews etc.

Method - gut and skin bunny cut into three bits legs loin forend. Soften onion and carrot in oil then add meat potions brown briefly then add liquid of choice, normaly i use a bottle of dry cider. Lid on and bring to pressue approx 15 lb for 10 - 15 min then leave to depressurise naturaly. Once cool pick off cooked meat then strain stock to remove bones and veg. This stock can then be reduced by half - add cream if you like.

Interested hear other people recipes esp beans and pulses...

keep cooking.

[featherstick]

I love our pressure cooker and it gets used many times a week. When combined with a hay-box it's the ultimate in cheap cooking. Last night I used it to make dhal for tonight's supper, having emptied the remains of the evening soup out of it.

My one objection is that the modern designs do not allow for adaptation to a still. The old designs with a spigot on top on to which a weight fitted were perfect for distilling one's own spirits (were such a thing legal, which of course it is not, so no-one, no-one would try it at all.)

I still hanker after a pressure canner though - an all-american one, with no pesky gasket to fail. They look like great pieces of kit.

[lightningxl]

Loving the idea of the haybox - have yet to try it next project in the pipeline.

Distilling idea is interesting - obviously for making water to top up car batteries ....

Can recommend Tim Haywards book DIY FOOD some good ideas...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Food-DIY-Everyt ... im+hayward

[Plymtom]

Horses for course,s we have a pretty big one, and could probably do with a smaller one again too, they're efficient so if you have to keep fuel consumption down, probably a must.

[FEISTY]

Pressure cookers are great, but I only have experience of the old kind and they were dangerous if misused. I bought myself one, having seen one in use for years and didn't follow the instructions properly (I think I didn't wash it out or season it or something before use). It developed lots of pits to the metal inside and, although I did use it for a bit, always worried about aluminium leakage and it eventually went into recycling. Would like a new one, because everything cooks in a fraction of the time. A godsend for anyone who wants a casserole, but doesn't want the oven on for 3 hours or can't wait that long. I have no idea if you can use them over a fire, so they are probably a pre SHTF accessory, but would save loads of money to be used on preps.

[FEISTY]

Just remember that anything under pressure can turn into a b.o.m.b - don't want MI5, 6 or 7 turning up at my door when this flags up . Be careful.

[featherstick]

Loving the idea of the haybox - have yet to try it next project in the pipeline.

Distilling idea is interesting - obviously for making water to top up car batteries ....

Can recommend Tim Haywards book DIY FOOD some good ideas...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Food-DIY-Everyt ... im+hayward

That book looks good, I might try and borrow it. I make my own bacon and buns already and have made sloe gin in the past.

Our "haybox" is actually a white MDF laundry box from Homebase with a beanbag filled with polystyrene balls in it, and the TV and virgin box on top of it. If I'm using it I pop the TV on the floor, wrap the pot up with an apron tied on to stop the lid moving (if not using the pressure cooker) pop it into the box and wrap up with the bean bag. Temperature drops quite quickly to about 70 degrees and then falls very slowly indeed. I often use it if we are going out for the day - a quick minestrone soup on the stove, then into the haybox, supper on the table in about 10 minutes when we come back home tired and hungry. If you are cooking meat with a haybox you should keep it at 100 degrees for 10 minutes.

[Decaff]

Am too scared of pressure cookers but my slow cooker is used all the time. Nothing better than walking through the door after a long day at work, especially when freezing cold and miserable out, to a gorgeously slow cooked dinner that just needs to be dished up. Mmmmm!

I too would love a canner and would can beef stew, chicken stew, casseroles, fruits and veg, can almost see those Kilners lined up in the cupboards!

[ForgeCorvus]

A canner is a pressure-cooker writ large

[Decaff]

A canner is a pressure-cooker writ large

Oh this is true! Thank you for pointing out the obvious, that wasn't obvious to me! How embarrassing!!