Not sure if this merits a new thread, but I am starting at a "low base" ;D when it comes to cooking, let alone Pressure cookers....but I have decided I need one.
On the boat will be cooking for 1 maybe 2 peeps so I was thinking I do not want a Pressure Cooker that can cope with a party of 10 - and then have the problem of storing it as well as simply heating it up!
Saw a small Pressure Cooker in a local cookery store recently and I thought to myself "that looks about the right size for the boat" - but then it occurred to me that their may be very good reasons why small is not in fact better........and I saw a thread here where someone was buying their 5th!!.......
I am guessing yer can use them on Electric (home) as well as on Flame (boat).....
Today I managed Pancakes ;D
One advantage of larger pressure cookers is that they're a bit more versatile. You can often bake in them, which is a bit tough to do in the smaller ones.
David -
Mine is a 4.2 quart KitchenPro Mirro WearEver brand (things must change *fast* in the pressure cooker business!!!), and it seems about the right size for 1-2 folks.
David,
Not trying to add to your qundry, but size is not the only question.
As AdraftAtSea said you may want to bake bread or cakes in it? That may be decided by what it's made out of, Stainless Steel, Al, or ??? The shape of it also can play a role if you decide you might want to try canning meat or ??? for longer voyages.
Jill and I just finished a pressure cooker project you might be interested in. You can see it on our WEB site.
Greg
What do I want to do with it?
MMMmmmm.......probably want to at least try Bread and Cakes - whether I would carry on is another thing!
Canning? Well, I did kinda mention this before :-\ - I guess would be good to keep me options open.......but if I end up with a large one to do this - does it affect me only cooking small portions for 1 person?
Been looking at this link:-
http://www.homeandbeyond.com/pressure-cookers---canners.html (http://www.homeandbeyond.com/pressure-cookers---canners.html)
I like the one in the top right corner - mainly cos no sticky out handle. and the colour ;D
Albeit will buy locally, so choice may differ / be more restricted.
Am I going to end up with 2 of them - a small every day one and one for special projects?..........and am I after Alu or Stainless?
BTW just looked at the website:-
http://delezynski.tripod.com/Guenevere/id6.html (http://delezynski.tripod.com/Guenevere/id6.html) am probably being a bit thick! -can't seem to find a Pressure Cooker project :(......will try again tommorow - now 1 am here........am off for my Beauty Sleep - I need it!
A really good case can be made for two of them. A smaller 4 quart model for just cooking things, and a larger one (6 qt? 8 qt?) for use as an oven to bake in. Plus that bigger one is just a bigger pot.
Remember- you don't HAVE to use them as pressure cookers- you can leave the weight off and then they are pretty much regular pots with a lock on lid. Means if you are cooking underway - or at anchor when that jackass throws his huge wake at you- should it get tossed off the stove, the lid has a shot a staying on. You haven't lived until a pot comes off the stove and spews all over the cabin- when you are cooking spaghetti sauce. And you don't have to be at sea for that to happen.
You can also bake cakes in them, as Laura shows in this picture ;D
This is the set I'd recommend. :)
LINK (http://www.amazon.com/Fagor-7-Piece-Deluxe-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B0007YWGXS)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RznlueKvL._SL500_AA280_.jpg)
David,
For our web site link about Pressure cooking, try:
http://www.svguenevere.com/dvd/ggpc/
Greg
I've been looking at PC's also and found some small ones on amazon 2.5 - 3.5qt.
I'm only going to use it for rice and beans.
Sharkbait,
Grab a book or read the directions before you purchase it. When you make beans in one you need to make sure it is not filled more than 1/2 full! Beans can foam when cooking and clog the relief valve. There are ways around that, but it's a learning process.
Greg
Quote from: sharkbait on May 07, 2008, 09:50:17 AM
I've been looking at PC's also and found some small ones on amazon 2.5 - 3.5qt.
I'm only going to use it for rice and beans.
Too bad to limit yourself, pressure cookers offer more than cooking rice and beans. 4 qt is a minimum, after that all depend of the space available to store it. And also It is always nice to have a decent size pot to cook crabs or the lobsters you gonna catch or trade :) :)
David_Old_Jersey and sharkbait,
Jill and I were just talking and she suggested,
"Get the biggest Pressure Cooker you can carry",
(on your 30 ft or under boat). You will find a LOT of uses for it. We like ours as it does not have a long handle that sticks out.
Also, we found that REI sells a nesting set of Stainless Steel pots that nest INSIDE our pressure cooker! Space saving!
Greg
After my Beauty Sleep I have developed a cunning plan......will buy the small one I saw.....and use it at home to learn on........and then afterwards buy a big one (I'm not on me Dollar a Day budget this year ;D).......I figure onboard most of the use will not be canning or baking. I do have a fair bit of room onboard at 30 foot and I am sure I can find room for 2 Pressure Cookers - especially if I also use the big one for storage.
Recently bought a Small Frying Pan and a Saucepan with folding handles (Tefal).......am not much of a cook but like using decent gear, even if not top notch.......the boat stuff is useable, but not great.
(http://www.argos.co.uk/wcsstore/argos/images/113-8603090SPA67UC327263M.jpg)
Frying pan makes a great omellete ;D
I am a bit of a sucker for things that look useful.......
WOW!!!
I LIKE those frying pans! :o' I have not seen them before. I will keep an eye out for a set for us.
THANKS!!
Greg
They have a bit of weight in them - and feel good, but not what I would call top notch (like I really know what I am talking about!! ::))......but they are real day to day use stuff and 100% NOT camping pans or anything close, which I really do not like (even if they do stack neatly).
Oh yeah, the big sell was the folding and NOT detachable handles.......to ensure I do not lose them ;D
David,
Where are you? Where did you pick up the pans? I seem to only see them (on line) in the UK. I may have to order a set.
Greg
Those do look cool.
This is just my opinion about pressure cookers/canners. Two of them is the way to go. One small 4qt size for one night meals and a large one for canning or large meals/items. Some are made for cooking and are limited as canners but you can can just about anything for latter use, even complete meals. I own one of the small cookers with a rubber seal for its size but I have several CANNERS that range from 6qt. to 30qt. All the CANNERS have machined surfaces on the lid and pot so I never have to worry about replacing the seal and they all have a weight that lets you change the pressure to 5-10-15lbs so theres no gouge to go bad over time as well. These have 4 to 8 wing type nuts that close them tightly for pressure or lose as a lid only if you want. I have got all of these canners from yard sales and one was made in the 30s' with the machined seal and adjustable weight that still work just like new. For a durable canner you just cant beat the machined seal and weight type models. Look at some books about cooking with canners and you will see the range of of ways you can cook and preserve food with them and you may agree a large and small one is the way to go
Quote from: Delezynski on May 07, 2008, 06:12:56 PM
David,
Where are you? Where did you pick up the pans? I seem to only see them (on line) in the UK. I may have to order a set.
Greg
I'm in the UK.
Just done some Googles, seems that TEFAL is known as T-FAL in the US http://www.t-falusa.com/tefal/products/category/index_100.asp?category%5Fid=100&mscssid=0G5LCT9PKCA78MTUKSF9JUJ3PEHK0X04 (http://www.t-falusa.com/tefal/products/category/index_100.asp?category%5Fid=100&mscssid=0G5LCT9PKCA78MTUKSF9JUJ3PEHK0X04) - but this site does not have them!
Could be a Biz opportunity for someone.........
David -
Could be a biz opportunity, *for YOU*... ;D
I looked online and could only see the T-fal Compact line available in the UK as well. Maybe folks could get you to send them across the pond?
I am guessing in America their is no demand for use in household cooking...........so as my market would only be Marine, I would have to.........double the price....or add a Zero on the end ;D
I am sure one of the UK online retailers would deliver to the US - or even a T-Fal retailer could special order?
We may try to find a set some place. We went to T-Fal, but they said not in the USA or Mexico.
Our problem is we are cruising Mexico for some time. So can't purchase in the USA and getting a specialty item like that here is very hard.
But we now know it is out there!
Greg
I have a 4 litre Kuhn-Rikon PC that I like a lot. It has been a great buy, but I certainly wouldn't go any smaller, even cooking for one. In preparation for passages and even harbor-hopping I do a lot of cooking ahead (a practice I recommend) and find the 4 litre size borders on too small.
I'm shopping for a pressure canner now so I can put more things up without refrigeration and for longer shelf life. For canning, height to clear a quart jar seems to be more important than volume, but you do need to have a place to keep it.
Time for a new cooker for me, looking around I came across this one, it seems like a good deal - stainless, tri-metal bonded bottom, modern valves & safety mechanisms, for a bit under $50, 4qts:
Ingrid Hoffman Simply Delicioso Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker (http://www.amazon.com/Delicioso-YS2H3964-Stainless-Dishwasher-4-2-Quart/dp/B004J6GO6U/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71mprfML9-L._SL1500_.jpg)
I am a devoted pressure cooker person. One thing I have had to learn--twice--is that the gasket in the lid does not float. A couple of times I have had to dive for it after absentmindedly swishing the lid in the water to rinse it off.
Size?
Based on our experiences, I'd say 4 qt minimum for a couple.
We have a kit that included a 4 qt and a 6 qt. We use the 4 qt often enough, but the 6 as well for a family of four.
Couple of thoughts:
With a bonded bottom, heating "dry" is a big no-no (*). That means no "dry" baking (no gasket, using the p-cooker as a dutch oven essentially), so baking bread, cheesecake and other goodies requires lid-on, under pressure cooking with an inner vessel.
THIS is what makes the 6 qt indispensable - the extra room to add a bowl, spring-form pan, etc.
(*) Not sure about the 'tri-metal bond' mentioned earlier in the thread...ours is a steel-aluminum bond I'd assume is NOT 'tri" metal. Manufacturer explicitly advises against 'dry' heating.
Dave-
You may find quarts to be too much food. Laura originally canned meats for us in pint jars ,then went to HALF pints. That turned out to be just about the right quantity for two, with other stuff in a meal. And of course, if you need a larger quantity, you can open two.
The pressure cooker aboard Tehani will hold five 1/2 pint jars.
She did 27 half pints of various meats while we were anchored in Boot Key Harbor, waiting weather to cross to the Bahamas.
Of course now I'm in the market again myself- that cooker stayed aboard Tehani. I'm looking to go stainless.
We don't bother with ice or cooling. We take things that just keep by themselves--rice, beans, potatoes. A pressure cooker is perfect for that kind of stuff.
Here's a trick I've learned to save propane: I put the stuff that takes a long time to cook (like beans or wild rice, for instance) into the pot and run the pressure all the way up. Then I shut off the heat and go do other stuff. As long as there's pressure things are still cooking. When I get back around to it, I run the pressure all the way up again--shut off the heat again and wait. I do it a third time for beans and rice--two is enough for buckwheat. When the pressure's gone down this last time I open the lid, check to see that there's still some water, and put stuff like carrots and onions and potatoes in--they don't take so long to cook. I run the pressure up one more time--shut off the heat--and when the pressure goes down it's ready to eat. Besides saving propane, part of the reason for doing it this way is, as has been mentioned above, you really don't want to boil it dry. It's easy to get distracted over the 30 or 45 minutes a pressure cooker is going and if you forget it's easy to boil it dry.
Apologies - I should have pointed out that I was necro'ing a thread from several years ago, trying to keep a topic cohesive with a tidbit of some recent, and possibly beneficient, info for other, newer sailFarers who weren't here back then. :)
John - I ran through this thread, and then paid a quick visit to Miss Vickies PC site, where she recc'ed the multi-metal bottom, checking to see if what that PC offered was "good stuff". That said - she is talking about pressure cooking, not *baking* - so you and your manufacturer may well be, and prolly are, right on. I'll have to look into that some more, even though I don't think I'll be baking in the PC, ya never know what might come of boredom and experimentation... :)
Keeping the terminolgy straight...we are using "baking" as dry baking. You can produce baked goods via "pressure baking." It works very well and has the p-cooker advatage of lowering cooking timez. For both breadand cheesecake, I halve the "normal" baking time.
Added just for clarity and completeness. ;)
For dry baking, Laura used a clay flower pot tray- like a saucer, turned upside down, under the pan for cake, bread, whatever. Held the bottom of the pan up off the direct bottom so the very bottom didn't burn.
Charlie, did your pcooker have a bonded bottom? That method may still be a problem (I don't know) with bonded bottom plates. The issue is that with no liquid in cooker, bonding gets too hot and breaks down.
It seems moot to me though, since I've not had any prblem 'baking' under pressure.
Nope- none of them do. All are older cookers. The one I have here is a Mirro aluminum. The one on Tehani is a plain stainless.
Capn K - if you tolerate Facebook you might look at https://www.facebook.com/groups/153367078130501/ . PCs on boats.
I'm not a big fan of Miss Vickie. Her stuff just doesn't work for me. Lorna Sass all the way!
Thanks for the heads up, Dave! 8)
I have owned a few and find that you will want to spend the money and buy a good one like a Fagor. I have a small one on the boat now ( it's just me) but wish I brought the larger one with me as almost every meal I make is more than a single serving.