Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup with Chicken

This original pressure cooker recipe makes a simple but delicious butternut squash soup and also cooks some chicken to serve along side it. I used a Magic Bullet to do my blending, but an immersion blender, regular blender, or food processor should work great too. The final flavour of this soup is very strongly butternut squash with hints of the other vegetables, so beware of adding all of the squash to the soup unless you prefer a single flavour.

6 L pressure cooker -- 10 minutes and 4 minutes with 10 minute natural release.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
• 2 zucchini, cut in half and sliced into 2cm-thick pieces
• 1 large sweet potato, cut in half and sliced into 1.5cm-thick pieces
• 8 chicken thighs (add as desired)
• 1 cup chicken broth
• poultry seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large butternut squash, peeled and quartered with seeds removed

Directions

• Spread out your thighs and cut them to make flat pieces. The goal is to butterfly the thicker parts to make a single sheet of chicken of even thickness.
• Pound chicken with the back of a knife or a meat mallet.
• Lightly coat chicken with poultry seasoning.
• Roll each thigh lengthwise.
• Add oil to pressure cooker.
• Set medium heat.
• Add onions. Cook until browned.
• Add garlic. Cook 1 minute.
• Add rolled chicken on top of onions and garlic.
• Add zucchini and sweet potato on top.
• Add broth.
• Add salt and pepper to taste. (1/2 tsp of salt is good.)
• Cover and lock pressure cooker for high pressure.
• Cook under pressure for 10 minutes. (Maybe too long?)
• Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.
• Quick release remaining pressure.
• Your chicken will be cooked and your vegetables will be mush.
• Remove vegetables to a large bowl and let cool.
• Remove chicken to another bowl and cover.

The chicken is not necessary to the dish, but it's easy to cook along with the vegetables

• If there's less than a cup of water left in the pressure cooker, add water.
• Add a trivet and steam basket to pressure cooker.
• Add squash with the insides facing up.
• Cover and lock pressure cooker for low pressure.
• Cook under pressure for 4 minutes.
• Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.
• Quick release remaining pressure.
• Your squash will be firm (too firm to mash, but not chewy). You may want to continue cooking if you like your squash softer.
• Remove squash to a bowl.
• Remove cooking liquid to a pourable container (ex: a measuring cup).
• Blend half of squash.
• Blend vegetables.
• Add blended vegetables to pressure cooker.
• Add reserved cooking liquid to reach desired soup consistency.
• Serve with rolled chicken and pieces of remaining squash.

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.

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.