Ask anybody
who has used one: An electric pressure cooker is convenient. The technology
that uses pressure and steam to speed up the cooking process makes everything
from vegetable dishes to main courses a pain-free affair in the kitchen.
The
popularly of the appliances has also created a strong following of cooks who’ve
got plenty of tips and tricks to share when it comes to whipping up your
favorite dishes. Below, we break down some of our favorite insider secrets and
lesser-known suggestions.
- Final steps: The water-based process that
lends itself to steaming vegetables and infusing water into certain other
dishes won’t exactly “roast” a piece of meat unfortunately. To finish the job
on a piece of chicken, use your oven’s broiler to brown and crisp the dish for
a few minutes after it has been cooked in your electric pressure cooker.
- Maximum capacity: Electric pressure cooker
veterans will tell you that overfilling your appliance is a recipe for
disaster. Food that expands, such as beans, should fill two-thirds of the
cooker while anything else should take up half of the space inside. You run the
risk of items not cooking properly otherwise. Further, cutting food up into
similarly-sized pieces ensures they will all cook evenly.
- Drowning a dish: Too much water could
doom your dishes. That’s because there is far less evaporation going on inside
the electric pressure cooker compared to a boiling pot of water on your
stovetop. Thus, it is imperative that between a half-cup to one cup of water is
used to correctly cook most items.
- Rushing for results: For those singing the praises of
electric pressure cookers and all the good they can do, avoid the urge to put
all the contents of your meal inside at the same time for faster cooking. It
isn’t going to work out. You’ll want to start by cooking items that take more
time then, after releasing pressure in-between, adding things that won’t take
as long so everything finishes at the same time.
For more
information on electric pressure cookers, call 973-287-5159.
