Pressure Cooker Frequently Asked Questions/Troubleshooting Tips

Pressure cookers are best known for their use in cooking meats and vegetables. You can cook pot roasts, beef, poultry, pork, lamb, and more; pork chops, for example, cook for just nine minutes with one cup of liquid. In addition, gumbo and other stews, red cabbage, meatballs, and even cheesecake can all be made using a pressure cooker. Many pressure cooker instruction manuals will include a set of recipes, and you can also buy cookbooks or look at websites designed specifically for pressure cookers.

There are few foods that you cannot cook in a pressure cooker, however, you should be careful when cooking foods that foam. Apples, pasta, dried beans, oatmeal, and other foods all create foam that clogs the steam vent. To prevent this problem, only fill the pressure cooker half full and add one tablespoon of oil when cooking high-foam dishes. Otherwise, the important thing is not so much what you cook as how you cook; do not use it as a fryer, and remember that if your food’s appearance is important to you, you may want to cook with cookware other than a pressure cooker.

What kind of pressure cooker should I buy?

Pressure cookers cost anywhere from thirty to two hundred dollars, and there are several quality pressure cookers on the market that you can buy them at many different stores. Kuhn-Rikon is one of the most respected brands, but there are also several other quality brands. You should, however, make sure that the cooker you purchase cooks at an adequate level of pressure; most recipes cook at fifteen pounds per square inch, so look for a cooker that cooks at that pressure level. In addition, stainless steel is generally recommended over aluminum, so if you can, choose a stainless steel cooker. Finally, consider your cooking preferences; if you cook for a large family, look for one of the large ten-quart cookers, and look for any other features that help you meet your family’s food requests.