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How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#181

Post by hsod »

masklinn wrote: post #158
hsod wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American and I just bought one and I've been kind of wary around it, even going into the other room while it cooks. I know it's irrational, but I find I keep thinking about the Boston bombings.

> I know it's irrational, but I find I keep thinking about the Boston bombings. It's worse than irrational, unless you've filled your pressure cooker with explosives and plugged the pressure relief valves it's not going to do anything except boil empty.

That seems to fall under the category of irrational?

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#184

Post by Spellman »

AlexC04 wrote: post #62
briffle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife made pulled pork in 1 hour this weekend. I have made several batches of yogurt 1 gallon at a time.

My girlfriend bought me a sous-vide stick for christmas https://anovaculinary.com/ I'm loving it, and was just trying to figure out how to make yoghurt in it. I was thinking a pot inside a cambro container or a bunch of mason jars in the cambro. An instant pot is an interesting choice. We have an old-fashioned pressure cooker at home, which doesn't get nearly enough use.

I've heard of people using it for massive batch jobs and freezing the now-sealed contents. Like gallons of chili. Or 10+lbs of chicken and seafood. Now prepped and portioned and saveable for the freezer.

Personally I use it for more niche goals.

Taking cheap steak cuts and getting a perfect internal temp as well as batch cooking chicken works out really well.

Getting a precisely boiled egg is amazing (see http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/10/sous-vide-101-all-about-e...).

I also set it up in a cooler and do 3 racks of ribs for BBQ events. Don't worry that the Anova claims it can't control that much water. The insulation of any cooler will let you far exceed it's ratings.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#185

Post by Spellman »

criddell wrote: post #137
dvcc wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChefSteps has a ton of helpful sous-vide recipes that really help build out a skill-set. They also have a yogurt one! ( https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/easy-delicious-sous-vid... )

I bought a sous vide set up a couple of years ago and I've been very underwhelmed with it. Are there any recipes that you think are especially good? I think my favorite is probably turkey breast just because it doesn't get dry. Everything else I've made in it (mostly different meats) has been okay, but nothing special. My family and I generally prefer things cooked on our grill.

If you're good at the grill, there's no reason to use a sous vide. Honestly, with very few exceptions, you can do everything the sous vide can do faster using traditional methods.

However, I personally like to pre-cook a bunch of food using sous vide then finish on the grill. Now food is ready with a lot less hassle on my part. Finishing on the grill, a pan, or in the oven is crucial to get good browning flavor!

So, to me, it's either for niche things (precise soft boiled eggs, unique cooking temp for meats), or as a time saving thing I can set, forget, and not fret over precise timings. Or do something like 3 racks of ribs over 24 hours in a cooler.

Otherwise, I agree, it's not my first tool I reach for to whip up dinner.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#186

Post by the-dude »

literallycancer wrote: post #73
masklinn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just as the pressure cooker started to go from "geek" to "mainstream" in its adoption curve. It's really really weird to read that, in europe pressure cookers have been mainstays of most every kitchen for decades, especially after SEB's "super cocotte" (released in '53, they'd sold 10 million by '69).

Exactly. "Most people have some concept of urban legends of exploding pressure cookers in their grandmother's kitchens," says Mr Qin. Am in Europe, literally everyone has a pressure cooker, never heard about them actually exploding.

Am in Europe, haven't seen a pressure cooker in use since the '70s.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#187

Post by LeifCarrotson »

erikb wrote: post #183

What's the difference to the decades old Rice cooker you can find in any Chinese home at least once? Really weird that this doesn't seem to get mentioned anywhere in the comments or article. It Looks so much more like a Rice cooker than a pressure cooker.

It has multiple power settings, rather than just heat-to-boil until the water has steamed off and the temperature jumps like in a rice cooker (which, admittedly, is a simple enough profile to be useful when cooking a lot more than rice - I lived on my rice cooker through college). These power settings can be controlled electronically by a timer.

And, regardless of what it looks like, it can be set up as a pressure cooker. This makes it an all-in-one rice cooker, pressure cooker, and crock pot/slow cooker.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#188

Post by wvenable »

johns wrote: post #48
always_good wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nespresso machine I got one of these as a gift and ended up giving it away after realizing how much garbage I was generating from it with those disposable one-use cups. I don't mind the 30 seconds of ritual to enjoy a cup of coffee/espresso.

I hate the pods, but they have a recycling program. Unlike K-cups.

We recycle our K-cups -- it's a bit of effort but it's not really that bad.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#189

Post by robertfw »

twothamendment wrote: post #168
AtheistOfFail wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but people tend to exclude that since you're not watching the pot.

If that is how cooking times are my slow cooker can make a mean stew in a few minutes - but you'll need to start it a half day before you want to eat it. If you remove the foil from a lasagna for the last five minutes and set a new timer, did it only take 5 minutes? I don't get the trend in instant pot directions to say it only takes X minutes when it is really warmup + X + cooldown. It really doesn't help anyone kno…

Half a day is a bit of an exaggeration - I've been making the best beef stews of my life in under an hour, including prep, warm up, cook, and steam release.

Likewise pulled pork in just a shade over an hour, perhaps 10 minutes actual prep time.

Re: How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following

#190

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

elithrar wrote: post #169
shostack wrote: post #115

Have had one since Black Friday. I feel generally competent in the kitchen to the point where assembling a nice meal (dare I say gourmet?) from scratch without a recipe is relatively easy for me. That said, I've found the Instant Pot to have a steep learning curve. For starters, you can't easily check on the food while it cooks, so if you are experimenting with large batch sizes and timing you are kind of gambling an…

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/09/pressure-cooker-recipes.h... is a great resource. The Texas chili is incredible: it's about ~10 mins of prep (saute beef; prep chilis), 30 mins under pressure and ~10 mins to boil off the excess liquid at the end and thicken. When compared to the hours it'd take in a dutch oven or slow cooker, it turns "weekend meals" into weekday ones.

Some of the instructions seem unsafe--how do you "heat oil in a pressure cooker until it's smoking"? You're generally supposed to only heat stuff with the lid closed, and at that point you leave it closed until it's done.
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