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In order of importance when it comes to must-have cooking tools in an Indian kitchen, a pressure cooker probably ranks highest due to the staple usage it has – from steaming rice and lentils, cooking beans, tough cuts of meat or even to make one-pot meals, a pressure cooker is a handy equipment to have for amateur as well as seasoned cooks. Given our busy lifestyles that leave very little time to meal prep or fix a meal, using quick shortcuts to speed up the cooking process even while using a pressure cooker, can aid in faster results without having to compromise on the flavour. Using simple hacks that leverage time spent in the kitchen to a bare minimum, can make your cooking experience seem quick and seamless.
Pick Right Ingredients
Choosing ingredients that are compatible with cooking under high pressure. Ingredients like tough cuts of mutton or pork, beans, and root vegetables are known to be excellent choices that also produce favourable results when pressure cooked. They primarily benefit from the high pressure, which helps break them down and tenderize them quickly. Additionally, cutting your ingredients into uniform sizes ensures even cooking and heat distribution, helping everything cook at the same rate, reducing the cooking time.
Pre-Soak Beans & Legumes
If you plan on using a pressure cooker to prepare beans, legumes or grains, pre-soaking them can significantly reduce cooking time, as soaking helps soften these ingredients, making them cook faster and more evenly. The swollen beans and legumes begin to soften from the inside as a result of pre-existent moisture, giving them a creamy and fluffy texture when added to gravies or mixed with aromatics and spices.
Partial Cooking
Adding a spoonful or two of fat and using it to brown meats or sauté vegetables before pressure cooking not only enhances the flavour of your dish but also reduces the pressure-cooking time. Hard vegetables like carrots or potatoes develop a complex flavour when tossed in fat whereas tough meats like mutton can be seared to add depth of flavour, which aids in elevating the overall taste of your curries or stews.
Use Cooking Liquid
While it is known that pressure cookers require a minimum amount of liquid to generate steam and build pressure, be sure to add the recommended amount of liquid, based on the recipe you follow. If certain ingredients like chicken or vegetables contain a fair amount of moisture, adjust the ratio accordingly as excessive liquid can lead to a diluted taste and mushy foods whereas insufficient moisture will affect cooking times and under-cooked food.
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Natural Pressure Release
Once your pressure cooker is taken off the heat, allowing the pressure to drop on its own results in tender, perfectly cooked rice, lentils and meat. While this takes a bit more time than a quick pressure release, it prevents overcooking – allowing the juices to be reabsorbed by the food. Taking extra care to ensure that the steam vent is clean is not just a safety measure but also facilitates the escape of excessive steam which might pool into moisture within your cooker.
Avoid Overfilling
Similar to pan-frying in a skillet, it is best to pick an optimum-sized pressure cooker for when you have an idea of how many people will be eating. While a small cooker is suited for single or double serving meals, using a large pressure cooker to prepare meals for a crowd is advisable – either way, the quantity of raw food must be halfway of the total volume of your cooker. What this also enables is the ability for the cook to calculate an approximate cooking time to which they can adhere, without having to fix any disastrous results or lead to food burning at the bottom.
