Comments on Cook Books

Occasionally, we mention recipes from cook books on our site. We'll try to keep this post updated with our thoughts on those books.


Pressure Perfect

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The introduction is like a workbook, where you can fill in information about your pressure cooker to make it easier to refer to later. There are lots of general tips about using and caring for your pressure cooker. The recipes are tasty and result in good presentation, although the book has no pictures for you to know that in advance. Each recipe comes with small variations to change it up and they also have "transformations" which significantly change the resulting dish. Transformations include from adding pasta, changing the meat, different barbecue sauces, and swapping many ingredients to give the dish a different ethnic spin.



125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes

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Like Pressure Perfect, this book includes some tips on pressure cooking, but isn't as exhaustive as Pressure Perfect. I've had some recipes not turn out, but I blame that on not using the alcohol specified in the recipe. Regardless, it's turned me off of 125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes. Has a few pictures, but I've yet to make anything with a picture, so I don't know how they compare to actual results.



Jamie's Food Revolution

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This book clearly wants to teach you more about cooking and how to make cooking more enjoyable. Jamie Oliver is one of my favourite TV chefs because he makes cooking seem more fun, and less rote following directions. The book is full of beautiful pictures that illustrate the meal in various stages of preparation. It also includes pictures of normal people with motivational quotes. Jamie's Food Revolution demonstrates some basic technique and pictures several major ingredients. I think the book's pictures are realistic and haven't been disappointed that my meals don't look as good as the pictures in the book.

If you're just starting cooking, like simple recipes (most are one page text and one page pictures), or just love cook books with pictures, this book is highly recommended.



The Joy of Cooking

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The Joy of Cooking is a classic cooking text that is filled with useful information on a wide range of culinary technique. It comments on ingredients and recipes with general advice for most recipe categories. While there are no pictures, there are frequently illustrations to demonstrate technique or to clarify the instructions.

If you're using the page numbers from Plate to Palate, I'm using "Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006."

Pressure Cooker Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes

This post is part of our update of meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

One of my favourite meals is meatloaf, but I rarely have much success cooking it. Generally, it's not finished in the time specified in my recipes. While I ran into that same problem again (probably due to using too much meat -- I love meatloaf leftovers), my pressure-cooked meatloaf was fantastic. I found Meatloaf with Cheddar-Smashed Potatoes (p133) in Lorna Sass' Pressure Perfect. Next time, I'll try replacing half of the ground beef with another ground meat like pork, chicken, or turkey.

6L Pressure Cooker -- 12 minutes and quick release.

Meatloaf

• 2 large eggs
• 1 medium onion -- finely chopped
• 1 bell pepper -- finely chopped
• 1/2 cup parsley -- I used that stuff from a tube
• 3/4 cup rolled oats (or dry bread crumbs)
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1/3 cup oil-packed dried tomatoes
• 1 cup Parmesan/Romano cheese
• 1.5 tsp Italian herbs (store bought blend, or 1/2 teaspoon each of oregano, basil, rosemary -- preferably ground together in a mortar and pestle)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 5-10 peppercorns -- coarsely ground with mortar and pestle
• 4 thin slices of prosciutto
• 1.5 lbs of normal or lean ground beef (not very lean or loaf will be dry)
• ketchup
• mustard

Potatoes

• 3 lbs russet (baking) potatoes -- peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2 cups of water (or 1 cup water, 1 cup broth)
• 1.5 cups cheddar cheese -- shredded
• 1/2 cup milk
• salt and pepper

Directions

• Coat the bottom and sides of steaming basket with oil from dried tomatoes. (Note: basket must have holes in the bottom.)
• Beat eggs in large bowl.
• Add onions, bell pepper, parsley, oats, tomato sauce, tomatoes, salt, garlic, peppercorns, cheese.
• Stir.
• Add meat and mix with your hands until blended.
• Place meat in a ball in steaming basket and flatten. Be sure to fill basket evenly.
• Spread thin layer of ketchup over top of meatloaf.
• Place prosciutto over top of meatloaf, and tuck in edges so they don't hang over the edge of the basket.
• Spread thin layer of ketchup over top of prosciutto.
• Squeeze drops of mustard on top of ketchup.
• Pour water into pressure cooker.
• Place potatoes into water.
• Place steaming basket with meatloaf on potatoes.
• Lock lid and bring to high heat.
• When high pressure is reached, cook 12 minutes.
• Turn off heat.
• Quick release pressure.
• Remove potatoes and place in a large bowl.
• Make sure the meat is cooked. A thermometer should read 155 F, or cut into the centre of the loaf and make sure it looks cooked (meat shouldn't look shiny). I used about 2 lbs of meat and needed 10-15 minutes more cook time.
• If not cooked, lock lid and bring back to high heat. Cook under high pressure in 5 minute batches until cooked. (In my case it was very uncooked, and I could have done 10 minutes right away.)
• When done, rest in basket for 5 minutes.
• Meanwhile, coarsely mash potatoes.
• Add milk and cheese (or add cooking liquid instead of milk).
• Mash to desired smoothness.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve slices of meatloaf with ketchup and potatoes.

The prosciutto turned out great: it was a little bit crispy and not chewy.

The rest of the meatloaf in the steaming basket.

Basic Pressure-Cooked Stew with Dumplings

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

You don't always feel like following recipes, but I'm not that familiar with pressure cooking. Not being able to see and test your food while it's cooking can be quite intimidating. However, it's nice to be create a simple stew with your pressure cooker -- that's one of the prime reasons for having it! I found a good generic stew recipe in from Chinda Chavich's 125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes. I use the Chicken Stew with New Potatoes and Baby Carrots and just vary the ingredients to equivalents according to the type of stew I want to make. I like to serve with simple dumplings you dropped into the stew to steam. I use the Joy of Cooking's Dumplings (p334) recipe.

6L Pressure Cooker -- 12 minutes and quick release.

Stew

• 3 lbs meat
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 large onion -- minced
• 2 cloves garlic -- minced
• 1 tbsp flour
• 8 potatoes -- halved or quartered into 1.5 inch chunks
• 3 stalks celery -- diced
• 2 root vegetables (carrot, parsnip, turnip)
• 3 carrots -- chopped
• 1 cup stock
• 1/2 cup wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbsp parsley -- chopped
• 1 tsp dried herbs (thyme and sage for chicken, oregano and basil for beef, oregano and rosemary for pork -- vary as you desire)
• salt and pepper

Dumplings

• 1 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• herbs or onion (optional)

Stew

• Heat oil over medium heat.
• Brown meat in batches.
• Set meat aside.
• Drain all but 1 tbsp of fat.
• Saute onion and garlic for 2 minutes.
• Stir in flour, potatoes, celery, carrot, root vegetables.
• Gradually stir in stock and wine.
• Add bay leaf.
• Bring to a boil and return meat and its juices to cooker.
• Lock lid and bring to high heat.
• Once high pressure is reached, cook for 12 minutes.
• Prepare dumplings (see below).
• Turn off heat.
• Quick release pressure.
• Discard bay leaf.
• Stir in herbs.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Drop dumplings into stew from a spoon so they are barely touching.
• (Tip: dip spoon in stew before dipping in dumplings batter so batter easily slides off spoon.)
• Simmer 10 minutes.
• Serve at once.

Dumplings

• Beat egg.
• Add half of milk.
• Separately, whisk together dry ingredients.
• Stir liquid into dry ingredients.
• Stirring, add remaining milk until mixture is stiff, but pourable.
• Add the herbs or onion.

Chicken Biryani

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.


An Indian friend of ours has a pressure cooker and she generally just cooks rice and lentils in it. I thought it would be interesting to see how other Indian dishes work. I found a recipe in Lorna Sass' Pressure Perfect for Chicken Biryani (p192). Usually we make our rice in a pressure cooker, and while this recipe had great results, cleaning scorched rice off the pressure cooker is no fun. The Biryani was good, but not spicy at all. I served it with store-bought naan (but I need to try Manjula's naan recipe), and I served with yoghurt on top (I used peach yoghurt and enjoyed it, but no one else was interested).

6L Pressure Cooker -- 3 minutes and natural release

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 large onion -- chopped
• 2 tsp anise seeds (I substituted PC Chinese Five Spice blend)
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 tbsp tomato sauce
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 3 small bay leaves
• 1.5 tsp salt (reduce if using salty broth)
• 4 tsp curry powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch of cayenne (optional, but recommended)
• 1.5 lbs boneless, skinned chicken -- cut into 1 inch chunks
• 2 cups dry rice
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1/2 cup almonds and/or cashews

Directions

• Heat butter in pressure cooker.
• Add onions, anise, and cumin.
• Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes.
• Add tomato sauce and cook for 20 seconds.
• Stir in broth, water, bay leaves, salt, curry, cinnamon, and cayenne.
• Add more curry powder to taste. Flavour should be strong.
• Stir in chicken, rice, and raisins.
• Lock lid and bring to high heat.
• Once high pressure is reached, cook 3 minutes.
• Turn off heat.
• Allow pressure to release naturally for 7 minutes.
• Quick release remaining pressure.
• Stir in peas and almonds.
• Replace cover and steam 2 minutes in residual heat to defrost peas.
• Remove bay leaves.
• Stir well before serving.

Pasta Fagioli (pasta and beans)

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.


Another surprising pressure cooker success was Pasta Fazool (p46) from Chinda Chavich's 125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes. I didn't expect much from this dish, but it turned out really tasty. I also included some cook along potatoes. Also, one thing that's nice about 125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes is that each recipe has both imperial and metric measurements. (Pressure Perfect has only imperial.)

6L Pressure Cooker -- 15 minutes and natural release. Cook pasta 7 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 can kidney or navy beans 
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 stalks celery -- chopped
• 1 large onion -- chopped
• 1 carrot -- chopped
• 125 g prosciutto -- chopped
• 2 cloves garlic -- chopped
• 1 tbsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• 1 can (400 mL) diced tomatoes
• 3 cups chicken stock (or use rib broth)
• 1.5 cups short dried pasta (penne, rotini...)
• 1 large sweet potato -- peeled and sliced into 1 inch slices
• salt and pepper

Directions

• Heat oil over medium heat.
• Add celery, onion, carrot, prosciutto, and garlic.
• Saute until onion browns.
• Stir in beans, rosemary, basil, chili powder, stock, and tomatoes (do not stir after adding tomatoes).
• Place sweet potatoes on top of mixture.
• Lock lid and bring to high heat.
• Once high pressure is reached, cook for 15 minutes.
• Turn off heat.
• Allow pressure to drop naturally.
• Stir in pasta and simmer uncovered for 7 minutes or until pasta is tender.

Lemon-Dill Potato Salad

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

Lorna Sass' Pressure Perfectrecommends the Last-Minute Potato Salad with Lemon-Dill Vinaigrette (p289) alongside your Beer-Braised Ribs in Barbecue Sauce (p111). I cooked the potatoes while baking the ribs. I was very impressed with the lemon-dill vinaigrette. Generally, I don't like acidic potato salad. It's often made with vinegar and I find the vinegar taste too strong. But the lemon juice mixed well with the olive oil to make a sauce that coated the potatoes well and was almost creamy, without having to add mayonnaise. One of my favourite potato salads.

6L Pressure Cooker -- 3 minutes

Potatoes

• 2 lbs waxy potatoes (like yukon gold) -- scrubbed, halved, and cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 2 stalks celery -- diced
• 1/2 medium red onion -- finely chopped
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1 cup water

Vinaigrette

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp dried dill
• 1 tsp salt
• pepper

Potatoes

• Pour water into pressure cooker.
• Set steaming basket (using trivet if necessary to keep potatoes out of the water).
• Add potatoes.
• Lock lid and bring to high heat.
• Once pressure is reached, cook for 3 minutes.
• Prepare Vinaigrette (see below).
• Turn off heat.
• Quick release the pressure.
• If potatoes are not tender, cook covered (do not lock lid) over high heat another minute. Do not over cook.
• Remove steaming basket and transfer potatoes to a bowl.
• Add celery, onion, and capers to potatoes.
• While potatoes are warm, toss with enough Vinaigrette to coat.
• Add more salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste.

Vinaigrette

• Combine ingredients in a small jar and shake.

Ribs with Sesame Honey-Mustard Sauce

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.


A week before we bought the pressure cooker, Yanna tried to make ribs, but didn't allow enough time for marinating, cooking, and finishing -- our recipe Baby Back Ribs (p505) from the Joy of Cooking comes to 10.5 hours. Cooking ribs faster in pressure was one of the first things I thought of and decided to try Beer-Braised Ribs in Barbecue Sauce (p111) from Lorna Sass' Pressure Perfect. I used the Ribs with Sesame Honey-Mustard Sauce variation (p113), but in the end I would have preferred a traditional barbecue sauce. I basted two of the ribs with a store-bought hickory sauce and we agreed that it was better than the Honey-Mustard Sauce. Lemon-Dill Potato Salad makes a great side dish.

6L Pressure Cooker -- 15 minutes and quick release. Bake 15 minutes.

Ribs

• 4 lbs of pork ribs
• 1 bottle/can of beer
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp red wine
• 1 tbsp vinegar

Sauce

• 1/2 cup mustard
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp sesame seeds

Ribs

• Cut ribs into 3 or four rib portions.
• Pour beer, water, wine, and vinegar into pressure cooker.
• Place ribs in pot so no rib is on top of another. They do not need to be submerged in liquid. I placed them all standing up by leaning them against the side of the pot.
• Do not fill the pot more than two-thirds full.
• Lock the lid in place and bring to high heat.
• Preheat the oven to 400 F.
• Prepare sauce (see below).
• Once high pressure in the cooker is reached, turn off heat and release pressure.
• Move the ribs to a foil-lined baking sheet. Feel free to reserve some ribs and bake in batches.
• (You can reserve the broth of future recipes.)
• Brush ribs with sauce on both sides.
• Roast until browned and crisp on top, 10 minutes.
• Turn ribs and baste again.
• Roast until browned and crisp on top, 5 minutes.
• Serve with remaining sauce.

Sauce

• Blend all ingredients together (I used our Magic Bullet).

Chicken Cacciatore

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.


We bought a pressure cooker recently and I made several recipes from Lorna Sass' Pressure Perfect. One of my first really successful creations was Chicken Cacciatore (p164). It's a great soupy dish that infuses your chicken with flavour and with the pressure cooker it's really fast.

6L Pressure Cooker -- 8 minutes and natural release. Rest 5 minutes.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion -- chopped
• 1 bell pepper -- diced
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 5 mushrooms -- quartered
• 3 lbs bone-in skinned chicken breast or thighs (can mix some boneless)
• 2 cups tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp dried basil
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper
• grated cheese (for serving)

Directions

• Heat oil in pressure cooker.
• Add onions and bell pepper.
• Cook over medium-high heat, stirring, about 2 minutes.
• Stir in wine and boil until half evaporates.
• Scrape up bits sticking to pot.
• Stir in mushrooms.
• Set chicken on top.
• Pour tomato sauce over chicken. Do not stir (tomato on the bottom of the pot will scorch).
• Lock lid in place and bring to high heat.
• Once high pressure is reached, cook for 8 minutes.
• Turn off heat (and move to a cool burner if necessary).
• Once pressure has released (roughly 10 minutes), remove lid (beware of steam!).
• Stir in basil, oregano, Parmesan, salt, and pepper.
• Rest for 3 to 5 minutes.
• Garnish with grated cheese.

Roast Chicken

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

It was just the two of us this Christmas, so we made a roast chicken for  dinner. We made the Perfect Roast Chicken (p196) and A Consistently Good Gravy (p205) from Jamie's Food Revolution.

Chicken
Ingredients: chicken, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon, and herbs. We used a bay leaf dried rosemary, oregano, and basil.

Gravy
Ingredients: heaped teaspoon of flour, wineglass of wine, 1 L of broth.


Prep

• Preheat oven to 475 F.
• Wash and chop vegetables -- these are for the trivet that will become your gravy.
• Peel garlic.
• Pile vegetables and garlic into your roasting pan.
• Drizzle chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
• Prick lemon all over and put in microwave for 40 seconds.

Cook

• Put chicken on top of vegetables and put in oven.
• Turn heat down to 400 F.
• Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
• Baste the chicken after 40 minutes. If vegetables look dry add some water to prevent burning.
• When done, remove the chicken from the pan and cover with foil.

Gravy

• Remove 90% of hot fat from the roasting pan.
• Put pan on cooktop over high heat. If your pan is not cooktop safe (metal), transfer trivet and juices to a sauce pan. Be sure to include the bits stuck to the roasting pan.
• Add flour and stir.
• Mash vegetables with a potato masher to a lumpy mush.
• Tear off chicken wing tips and break them up in the pan.
• Add the wine.
• Boil a few minutes.
• Add the stock -- add it in a few batches to ensure your gravy isn't too runny. You may only need 1/2 L, but keep in mind some liquid will boil off.
• Break to a boil and keep scraping the bottom.
• Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until you reach desired consistency.

Chicken Fajitas