If you're old enough, your memory of pressure cookers is probably of a steaming, spitting monster of a pot, noisily rattling on the kitchen stove. I know I have this memory of pressure cookers and it made me afraid to even try this most useful cooking tool for decades.
What Exactly Is a Pressure Cooker?
Pressure cookers look like other kitchen pots, except their lids are a bit more elaborate. How they work is that they completely seal the pot. When the liquid inside boils, it is trapped inside the pot. Having nowhere else to go, steam builds up pressure. This results in higher cooking temperatures and shorter cooking times.
Why Use a Pressure Cooker At All?
You may be asking, even though today's pressure cookers are safer than the old fashioned ones, why take a chance at all with something that cooks under pressure? I felt the same way until I actually tried pressure cooking. Now I'd be hard pressed to live without my pressure cooker. There are lots of advantages to using this valuable kitchen tool including:
Nutritional Boost - Due to the shorter cooking time and the fact that food is cooked in less liquid that gets boiled away, more vitamins and minerals are retained than with conventional cooking methods.
Saves Money - One of main advantages of cooking with a modern pressure cooker is that it allows you to tackle recipes like high protein dried beans, peas and lentils, that would take hours to cook by other means, can be cooked in as little as 9 to 20 minutes. Even the toughest cuts of meat, which are inexpensive, but often avoided because of their lengthy cooking times, can be cooked in a modern pressure cooker in about 30 minutes instead of 3 hours. The drastically decreased cooking time insures that you will use much less energy than it would take to cook the same meal by steaming, boiling, braising, or roasting. The shorter cooking times also help retain more of the vitamins and nutrients in the food, meaning that you get the most bang for the buck for your food buying dollar with lower grocery bills. Use the pressure cooker to cook an entire meal of several courses on only one burner and you'll quickly see a substantial fuel savings in fuel costs... and that's great for your wallet and the environmental concerns that we all have as good citizens and stewards of our world.
Saves Time - Food cooks up to 70% faster in a pressure cooker, making it a wonderful tool for when you come home after work and have to get dinner on the table in a hurry. You can put ingredients in the pressure cooker and by the time you're finished tidying up the kitchen you can have a wholesome, hearty home cooked meal.
Energy Efficient - As less cooking time is needed, less energy is needed to accomplish the task. Using a pressure cooker is a very green option because they are an extremely energy efficient way to cook. Pressure cookers are more economical than most other cooking methods, saving approximately 25% of energy of a convection oven. At 15psi, today's modern pressure cooker will cook food 70% faster than conventional cooking. That's like paying $1 for a gallon of gas instead of $3.According to one study, the average family in the United States spends about $1,300 a year on home utility bills. This is roughly 75% more energy than a family living in the countries of Europe. The average household uses 775 kWh of energy annually for cooking, and for a typical household that can cost as much as $150 each year, or about 6.5 percent of the average home's consumption of electricity, which generates up to 1.5 tons of greenhouse gases. A pressure cooker is a tried and true energy saver by reducing the costs of cooking fuel because food takes much less time to cook.
Cooler Kitchen - As all the steam and heat stays within the pot, your kitchen stays cooler than with traditional stovetop or oven methods.
Cleaner Kitchen - As all pressure cooker foods are cooked in a covered pot, there are no messy splashes or spatters to clean up and no boiled over foods - ever!