Feeling The Pressure - So What If It Took A Decade

 How is it that you have a tool that has been sitting on your kitchen shelf for at least a decade before you finally decide that it might be useful. AND THEN, find not only is it useful, BUT IT DAMN NEAR CAN TRANSFORM YOUR COOKING LIFE!

What's bringing forth such passion?

My Pressure Cooker.

Not the new fangled Instant Pot. No my traditional, on the stove pressure cooker. 

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Necessity in this case is a lack of time. Theodora Africa Phase II has been launched (more on that in a future post) and there is a host of work to be done to realize the expansion. As a result less time to cook. YET, it is the time of year for long, slow cooked braises. And I have a freezer filled with pork shoulder, boneless lamb leg, beef chuck roast all begging to be slow cooked. But where is the time to do this?

So a month ago, I said, "Damn de-I, you've had this freaking pressure cooker you barely use for over a decade. Give it a try."

My first go was a pork shoulder pot roast. A challenge cooking here at altitude is getting meats like these tender because of the lower boiling temperature of water (causing all liquid based cooking to take longer). In the case of braises, a lot longer. Often, I would use a two-day process of cooking to get the desired tenderness and depth of flavor. Well I popped in my pork should with a bunch of flavorings and after 2 hours, it was this incredibly fork tender, taste imbued meat.

A couple of weeks later, I decided I wanted to make a lamb curry. Instead of a laborious, hand pounded curry paste, I put all my roots, leaves and stalks (galangal, ginger, garlic, onion, tumeric, cilantro, kefir lime leaf) along with my dried spices into the blender with some stock. I blended it into liquid (like is done with Ghana cooking). Put that and the lamb chunks in the pressure cooker. An hour and a half later, incredible lamb curry.

Today it was beef pot roast. On Friday, I had defrosted the chuck roast and covered it in dried flavorings (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, sage, rosemary). I let it sit refrigerated overnight. On Saturday, I whipped out the pressure cooker, browned the meat on both sides, put a can of beef broth in, fired out the pressure cooker, an hour and a half later, turned it off. Let it rest until the pressure was down. When opened the meat was fall apart tender.

Now I am of the tribe the finds all braises are better the next day. So in the fridge it goes almost ready for Sunday dinner. An advantage to this is all the fat congeals and you can scoop it off so easy. I parboiled potatoes and carrots for 15 minutes. Reheated the roast and juices in the microwave for 7 minutes. Added said potatoes and carrots to the roast and put in a 350 oven for 20 minutes. Pot roast perfection for Sunday dinner (he says with extreme modesty).