Transforming Your Recipes for The Pressure Cooker

Transforming your recipes from stove top cooking to pressure cooking is fairly easy. First, your original recipe must have some kind of liquid in it, as that is what will get your cooker to pressure. The pressure cooker is best for soup, stew, chili, braises and mock stir-fries, as well as beans, grains and vegetables. I feel like an expert in the latter since I do this very often with whatever local produce I have available.

Yesterday I cooked colored cauliflower and purple and yellow potatoes with carrots. I used only about 2/3 of a cup of stock (made easily earlier in just 5 minutes at pressure), and there was plenty of liquid to get to pressure plus a bit left over which gets absorbed by the potatoes as the dish sits. I don't like my veggie dishes to be watery but sometimes it happens. If it does, you can remove the vegetables and cook down the remaining liquid.

When reducing the liquid, you use less but how much less truly depends upon what you are cooking. When I cook presoaked beans, I use only 1/2 cup per 1 cup of soaked beans. In my tofu braises, I only use about 1/4 cup of liquid. Obviously for soup, it really doesn't matter much. Just remember that most cookers don't lose a lot of liquid in cooking, and if you are adding vegetables that release water, that will add to the liquid as nothing boils away.

Pressure cooking is a great way to cook. If you have any questions, you can always shoot me an email at jill@pressurecookingonline.com. I'd love to hear from you.