Pressure Cooker

[GaryM]

The link you posted looks just like the "Fagor" pressure cooker we bought at a home show a few years back. Has the same cross bar and all. You can pressure fry in it just fine. That's one of the things they demo'ed.

It's stainless steel with a bottom that must be at least 3/8" thick.

[Al_Wa]

<font color="blue"> Hey, aren't you supposed to be working? </font color> Typing and thinking are work for me. To do them at the same time is really working.

I am clueless how pressure frying works. Pressure canning allows the water to boil at a much higher temperature.

When I make french frys, I sometimes will get the grease to hot and it breaks down and leaves a bad taste. I used to get fried chicken and Jo Jo's in a bar that pressure cooked them and they were great. So I know it works, but seems like the grease would break down the same way as normal deep frying. What am I missing?

Clueless in Seattle.(Al)

[egon]

The pressure cooker is what happens when you manage to get home from the bar.

Egon

[GaryM]

Quoteing from the book that came with my cooker "pressure frying is a method of cooking with oil, under pressure. It seals the food very quickly on the outside and steams it on the inside in it's own natural juices" It goes on to say that the oil must be at 375 Deg.

Examples of time per pound are as follows:

Poultry, 3 min. per lb.
French Fries, thin, 2 min. per lb.

They emphasize that the timing begins when the lid is put on, not when pressure is reached.

Hope this helps

[Al_Wa]

Thanks Gary,
When you have finished cooking, how do you relieve the pressure? Seems like this could be exciting, or at least messy. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Well, I'll admit that we have not done any pressure frying. But in normal operation, all you do is remove from the heat and pull the weight, which controls the pressure, up to the notch. When the steam stops escaping, just turn the knob on the locking bar and remove the lid.

I have a receipe for "zippy lamb shanks" that cook for 45 minutes and fall off the bone. Yum Yum!

I've also dry roasted a chicken in the pressure cooker. Five minutes per pound, so what's that 20 minutes for an average bird?

[Slydog]

I believe I'd wait till it quits hissing before removing the weight though. Otherwise it could be like removing a radiator cap while the radiator is under pressure.

I still remember as a teen when I came home from school to find turnip greens blown all over the "popcorn" ceiling in our kitchen. Talk about an impossible mess to clean up! The pressure valve had blown out on the cooker and spewed turnip greens everywhere. Luckily the pot did not explode! Keep a close eye on those things!

Ken

[Pat]

You can run cold water over a pressure cooker to speed up the waiting process prior to removing the weight. If you remove the weight prematurely while any of the liquid within is still above boiling temp at normal pressure the contents will boil vigorously and can spew some of the contents out which can make a mell of a hess.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Al_Wa]

Follow Pat's "run cold water" advise only if you have a cheap pressure cooker that you want to leak. Don't run cold water over any All Americian Foundry product.

[Bird]

I don't know anything about All American Foundry products, but we (my wife and I as well as my mother when I was just a kid) have used the cold water method with a variety of different pressure cookers for over 50 years and it never damaged any of them.