Читать книгу The Complete Book of Pressure Cooking - L.D. Michaels - Страница 4

Almost 60 years after it was first introduced to the general public, the pressure cooker is still undervalued and misunderstood. Although there is a hard core of enthusiasts who know and understand this highly useful kitchen aid, for much of the public at large pressure cooking is an almost forgotten technology. When did you last see a pressure cooker in one of the very large number of TV cookery shows? Why is it that stores hide their (rather limited) range of pressure cookers far away from their main displays?

I can think of two reasons. First, there is the urban myth that pressure cookers are dangerous and liable to explode – that has definitely not been true since the very earliest domestic devices of the 1950s, and even before then it required some fairly persistent carelessness. But second, the vast majority of instruction manuals that come with the cookers are dire. Typically, after dealing with basic maintenance issues, they simply provide a series of charts of cooking times for various foods and a few perfunctory recipes. They provide nothing by way of explanation. Worst of all, many do not even tell you the pressure under which they operate. Working pressures can vary from 7 psi (pounds per square inch) to 15 psi, and 12 psi is now widely used. But without knowledge of the pressure at which the cooker works, cooking times cannot be calculated, which leaves the reader reliant on the poor-quality recipes supplied by the manufacturer and with little opportunity to do what most cooks want – to be able to adapt and develop their own.

The fact is that the pressure cooker is one of the most useful kitchen aids around, and one of the least expensive both to buy and to run. It delivers not one but two cooking techniques unavailable elsewhere. The first is pressure steaming, where the food sits on a trivet above a small pool of water. It works like conventional steaming but with the benefit that it is much faster. With the second technique, pressure simmering or pressure poaching, the food is cooked in water, stock or other fluid that is itself pressurized. The pressure cooker enables you to prepare a wide variety of dishes much more rapidly than usual with more conventional techniques. In many cases the result is better tasting and better looking, and has improved texture and nutritional value. These relatively new techniques of cooking, which are more than just updated versions of what cooks have been doing for the last few thousand years, usually manage to preserve the inherent nutritional qualities of the food much more effectively than any other method of cooking. The shorter time taken brings advantages beyond simply less slaving over a hot stove, since you’ll be using less fuel for heating and will run less chance of greasing up your kitchen. In the years since the pressure cooker first appeared, cooks have discovered precisely what they can do with it – and what they can’t.

I’ve tried to write both for the cook who is just beginning and for the experienced one who probably thinks that pressure cookers aren’t any good for “serious” results. It can be used for all pressure cookers, no matter what make. I also include sections on electric pressure cookers, popular in some parts of the world and almost unknown in others. The book leaps the gap between simple instruction and proper explanation. The essentials of pressure cooking are easy, but there is no reason why the results should be any less good than the most skilled, proud and fussy cook regards as the best.

I don’t believe that pressure cooking replaces other methods of preparing food. I do believe that it provides a number of extra techniques and possibilities that every cook should know about. I have discovered, from my own experience, that it’s possible to revive some of the delicious old recipes of yesteryear that have fallen into disuse because modern cooks lack the time for all the lengthy simmerings and skimmings, clarifyings and reducings that they called for. I have also been able to invent new recipes that would be virtually impossible by any other method. You can use pressure cooking for one-pot recipes in which the entire dish is cooked in the pressure cooker or as one very useful stage in a recipe that requires a more complex approach.

What I’d like most of all is to take the pressure cooker out of its present “special” status and let it take its due place in the kitchen with all the other essential sensible appliances that we use. I’d like to look forward to a time when the pressure cooker isn’t pulled out of its cupboard either in a half-ashamed fashion or as a gimmick, but simply as the best and quickest way of getting a certain set of foods and dishes cooked – just like that!

Pressure cooking isn’t a miracle that completely suspends what happens in the ordinary course of cooking processes – it won’t give you a perfectly roasted joint in minutes (though I’ve seen that claimed), barbecue you a steak or fry you a fish. However, used and understood properly, it will transform the way you think about cooking.

This book is designed to help you integrate the pressure cooker into your normal cooking routines, habits, likes and dislikes. Everyone knows that good cooking is a mixture of knowledge, imagination and instinct. By the time you’ve been using this book for a while, I hope your own skills will be developing rapidly and you’ll know instinctively when to turn to your pressure cooker for the best results.

I begin with a “what to look for in a pressure cooker” chapter, useful for those about to purchase, and then there is a section about the physics and chemistry of how and why pressure cooking works. You can skim this chapter if you wish, but if you’re going to invent or adapt your own recipes, it’s helpful to know why some things succeed while others fail.

Each of the main chapters (I have followed the traditional cookbook practice of writing about foods in the order in which they would normally be eaten in a meal) begins with a simple “how to cook it” section that contains the basic principles. I then give my own versions of traditional favourites cooked by the pressure method, and finally there are some more sophisticated ideas for the more ambitious. I want to show that, despite its speed, pressure cookery is by no means “cheating” and that it is perfectly capable of the fine-dining results. The range of recipes is wider than in most conventional cookbooks, but everyone should find several favourites, as well as some things they may like to experiment with. The range of basic ingredients used is also wide, since supermarkets, food and farmers’ markets and specialist food shops and online suppliers are offering us an ever-increasing wealth of foods.

I’ve also included my own adaptations of Caribbean, Mediterranean, African, Indian South American and Chinese cooking for maximum variety and appeal. Vegetarians are usually poorly catered for in “general” cookbooks, yet pressure cooking can be of special help to them, not only in retaining the maximum goodness in fresh vegetables but also in making the handling of dried ingredients much more simple. Many non-vegetarians simply don’t know the variety of textures and tastes that vegetarian food offers – perhaps this is their chance to learn.

Pressure cookers can also be used to cook steamed puddings including traditional Christmas pudding to great effect and in much less time than using conventional means, so there’s a chapter on that – another relatively neglected area of modern-day cookery.

The pressure cooker can also help you prepare fresh produce for the freezer more effectively than any other method available, to ensure a safe, hygienic result and avoid deterioration.

I have used the word “complete” in the title because I also explore the edges of what makes sense – for example, when not to use a pressure cooker and items that seem to come up quite frequently on specialist cookery websites such as the possibilities of pressure frying as used in chicken fast-food outlets. (Short answer: don’t try this at home!)

Throughout the book I have given quantities and measurements in metric along with an approximate imperial equivalent in brackets afterwards. The equivalents I have used vary slightly throughout the book – I have gone for ease of use rather than mathematical accuracy, but they all work. When I refer to pints, I mean the imperial measure of 20 fl oz, not the American one of 16 fl oz.

Parts of this book originally appeared in print form; wherever possible I have tried to maximize the advantages of the e-book format, particularly in the provision of links and cross-references. If your e-book reader supports it, make use of the “contents” facility for moving around quickly and locating specific items of information and recipes. You may find that some of the tables are more readable if viewed in landscape as opposed to portrait format; alternatively most e-book readers will let you reduce the size of the display font – you should still find the tables very readable.

Finally, by way of reassurance and whetting the appetite for what is to come (and that is half the secret), let’s dispel a few of those myths about why one shouldn’t use a pressure cooker:

1 PRESSURE COOKERS ARE DANGEROUSNonsense. All appliances on the market should be able to withstand a minimum internal pressure six times in excess of anything required for normal use. All pressure cookers have a safety valve that blows well before danger point. The safety valves are sensitive both to excess pressure and to excess heating. If you overheat the appliance, the food may spoil, and if it boils dry, the bottom may eventually warp. However, the pressure cooker is a good deal safer than a frying pan, much safer than a deep-fat fryer and much less likely to create a mess than an out-of-control saucepan.

2 PRESSURE COOKERS ARE DIFFICULT TO CONTROLWell, they do work fast – that’s the idea. But with foods that cook rapidly anyway, there is no need to cook at full pressure. With the valve or weights off, the pressure pan is a superb steamer at ordinary temperatures – one of the best ways of cooking vegetables and fish. If you follow the timings you should have no trouble. In any case, one of the first things you learn is when to undercook certain foods and then finish off under careful control at normal conditions. The rest of it takes as much practice as learning any other sort of cooking method.

3 IT’S DIFFICULT TO FLAVOUR AND SEASONNot true. Pressure cooking uses less liquid than ordinary methods (when you steam, in fact, the liquid you put in doesn’t touch the food at all), so your spices and herbs will not be diluted as much as they are ordinarily and therefore you simply use less. By finishing off a dish at ordinary temperature and pressure, you can control everything normally. And as far as herbs are concerned, the pressure cooker actually encourages you to use them properly. Most people put herbs in far too early in the cooking process – the heat simply dispels into the atmosphere the aromatic oils that constitute the flavour, or breaks them down, leaving a bitter taste. The majority of herbs are best added, finely rubbed between the fingers if they are dry, towards the end of the cooking period, and with the heat down low. With pressure cooking, you simply speed up the normally long period of cooking the main ingredients and then finish off slowly, adding herbs and correcting seasoning as good cooks have always done.

4 PRESSURE COOKING SPOILS THE FOOD’S TEXTURETrue, up to a point, if you are careless. But if you think ahead, don’t expect impossible results and follow the instructions and advice, the texture of some foods may be even better than you are used to – vegetables, rice and cereals, for example. Most pressure-cooked foods are spoilt through careless pressure reduction by too rapid cooling.

5 CLAIMS MADE ABOUT THE RETENTION OF NUTRITIONAL VALUES ARE EXAGGERATEDThe human body needs a wide variety of nutrients to sustain it – not only carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals and various sorts of fats but also enzymes. The nutritional value of some of our foods goes into decline the moment the food is picked, the vegetable lifted from the ground or the animal killed. Heat kills some of the other ingredients in the food we eat – in some cases fortunately for us, as the bacteria in certain raw meats are harmful to humans. But the greatest losses in food values stem from three common happenings in the kitchen: long cooking times, open-pan cooking and the leaching away in water, stock or gravy that is then discarded. Pressure cooking minimizes all of these.

6 PRESSURE COOKING MAKES FOOD SOGGY AND COLOURLESSNot true. It’s all a matter of following the instructions carefully and applying a little common sense. Provided you are not too slap-happy (in which case you’ll never be a good cook, whatever method you try), you should have no trouble.

7 PRESSURE COOKING CAN’T BE USED FOR GOURMET RESULTSJust you wait till the end of this book and see!