The impetus for pressure cooking methods has its very early origins with Napoleon Bonaparte who sought to find a better way to feed his troops.
Although many users don’t cook for audiences as large as a platoon, home and professional cooks for medium to large audiences have discovered the efficiency of cooking with pressure and the side benefit of more enjoyment with friends and family eating quality food. Wouldn’t you like to cook your meals and get out of the kitchen to enjoy more time with your family and friends?
Generally, this meal preparation method takes about 1/3 of the time that traditional cooking takes. Typical pressure cooker meals include the following:
- whole chicken
- beef stew
- chili
- baked yams
- risotto
- roasted potatoes
- artichokes
- brown rice
- boiled potato
- roast pork or pot roast
- black beans
The energy savings over traditional cooking methods are dramatic, so much so that your pressure cookware can pay for itself in close to one year. Kuhn Rikon, a leading Swiss company that manufactures quality pressure cookers calculated energy costs (based on Pacific Gas and Electric rates) savings for the above meals across a variety of cooking methods.
Their results showed a potential savings of more than $300 per year on energy costs compared to traditional cooking methods when cooking weekly the above meals on a weekly basis over one year. Energy consumption estimates are conservative. Although, generally, a setting of low is recommended for most of the cooking time with pressure methods these cost saving comparisons measure high heat throughout the cooking period.
Aside from the considerable time and energy/cost savings, cooking with pressure can enhance your cooking in several ways.
- Low fat cooking
- A high retention of food nutrients
- A tasty concentration of flavor
- Ease of Care
- Variety of Sizes and models available
- Variety of Price levels
Research has cautioned against all aluminum pressure cookers however, stainless steel pressure cookers with an aluminum base encapsulated in the stainless steel offer the advantages of high and even conductivity of heat and no exposure to aluminum entering the food.
An excellent example of this is the Kuhn Rikon 7.4 quart model often described as the best all around pressure cooker.
Professional cooks and individuals with busy lives who cook for a large family or gatherings couldn’t do their jobs without the ability to prepare meals with pressure.
Modern models (since the 1960s) have many built-in safety features and the stainless steel models are easy to clean.. Considering the time-savings, quality and amount of food that a pressure cooker can produce for you, selecting a quality model as a cornerstone of your kitchen collection is a very wise investment and a must-have for anyone cooking for a hungry family or for gathering and groups.
