Electric pressure cookers are all the rage now. I'd been wondering if maybe it was something we might find useful, especially since I'd heard it could cook a meal in 5 minutes.
The well-known name brand is "Instant Pot".
So when a free class was offered thru the Extension Homemakers, I jumped on the chance.
The class covered how to use, clean, and the safety features of the device. Here steam is being released.
You have to be careful to open in a way that the steam won't burn you!
Then we broke into groups with each doing a different recipe.
In the end, I decided that I definitely do NOT need this gadget. My deciding factors were:
1. It is NOT all that fast when you count in the time it takes to come to pressure and to release pressure. The chicken dish took 11 minutes to pressurize and 10 minutes to depress, plus 20 minutes to cook (41 minute total). The apple dessert took THIRTY minute to come to pressure and about 12 minutes to come down, plus 8 minutes to cook (50 minutes total).
I could have done both quicker with my electric skillet.
2. Because of expansion, you can only use 2/3 of the space. So a 6 quart cooker will only give you 4 qts of cooking space. And if you do something like pasta which really expands or beans which froth, you can only use half of the space...
3. Food particles get pushed into the lid seal area and it is not easy to clean it out. The agent said the best way she found to clean it was to wrap a rag around a spoon handle and really work it in the grooves.
4. The rubber seal... First off, if it is not in perfectly, the pot won't work. Second, it collects food odors and gets stinky. And she hadn't figured out how to de-stink it.
That was enough reasons for me.
