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Awesome looking deep dish pequod! I cooked some steak yesterday, quick sear on the KK after an hour in the Sous vide, very tasty. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Put my La Chamba clay pot to work today to make chili and it is going to be hot more ways than one on a cold winter day.

Detroit style deep dish with sourdough crust. This Chicago boy is thinking Detroit wins this round. Was going to use the recipe from “Perfect Pan Pizza”, but it turn out to be nearly identical to my sourdough focaccia recipe, so not much point in departing from that. Here it is.

Feeling the Pressure: Giving in to the Pressure Cooker Steve Sando founded Rancho Gordo beans, considered by many the best supplier of dried beans in the United States. (All bets are off once one includes Spain, where the best beans can require a second mortgage.) To summarize, he has relaxed his prejudice against pressure cooker beans, seeing it now as a possible step whose shortcomings can be corrected in later steps. That's also how I use sous vide: as a step. The issue isn't the quality of the beans themselves; pressure-cooked beans could be rinsed and placed on a salad, and no one would be the wiser. Rather, a pressure cooker fails to develop as rich a bean broth. One can indeed end up with a similar broth most of the time with most beans, but once one experiences a great broth from great beans, that becomes the quest. That is also my experience with stews; the quality of the liquid base is key, and a pressure cooker can't compete with a long slow reduction. I know how to cook a stew in a clay pot so it comes out tasting like I used a pressure cooker. I don't know how to cook a stew in a pressure cooker so it comes out tasting like I used a clay pot. In this sense, the pressure cooker is less expressive. There was a time when I would have claimed that beets were the killer app for pressure cookers. Then I realized that sous vide is the best way to cook beets. This doesn't carry over to sweet potatoes, where a pressure cooker rules.

I don't find it noticeably inferior for beans and stews, nor anything else. The pressure cooker has revolutionized our kitchen. And it is superb as you say for potatoes, sweet and otherwise. You will NEVER boil a pot of water for potatoes, rice or pasta again once you learn how to do it on a PC. Imagine throwing your rice and water in the pot, pushing a button and walking away, only to come back to a perfect pot of rice. Without the unitasker of a rice cooker. The applications for it are endless and the time saving is fantastic. Have you ever stood over a pot of steel cut oats for an hour endlessly stirring? Throw the oats and water in the PC, push the button for a 10 minute cook and walk away. Things you normally could not prep on a weeknight after work are easily accomplished with the PC. Now as far as the smoke ring, there is less of it with the PC. In this particular usage, getting turkey done at light speed, I am not concerned with that. Poultry in the PC stays moist and not dried out at a food safe 165ºF. It cooks extremely fast and you can put as much crispness, smoke and color on it as you want when you finish it in the KK. If you want to really smoke it, just cook it to about 140º in the PC and then finish it on fire. The PC is not the only way to cook, it is a fantastic addition to your array of methods. As far as beef, I have used it to precook ribs, roasts, and so on before finishing on the fire. I urge everyone to try it, it won't be the only way you ever cook beef but you WILL find applications for it, especially for time saving. It makes a pot roast in a flash. Doing ribs after work in an hour and a half versus 4-5 hours on weekends only is something! The flavor and tenderness equal or surpass anything you can do on a straight fire. The visual of the smoke ring is irrelevant if you get the flavor and texture you want. I have not tried it on a brisket. You would have to cut the brisket up to fit it in the PC. I will absolutely try it, however. Some days I want the long extended cook, the time outdoors, the adult beverages, a cigar, the company of the coonhounds. Other days I want superb food in a ridiculously easy and fast cook. For stock, broth and soup you can't beat it.I have been so smitten with using the PC I bought another one. With two PC's you have your stove and ovens freed up to cook and warm anything for a big party. Now for those who are unaware, modern electric pressure cookers have a browning and sautéing mode, a slow cooker mode (get rid of your Crock Pot), yogurt making, cheese cake making, cake baking, I really can't cover it all here. If you are curious, search Youtube for any recipe you ever make, but precede it with the term "pressure cooker" For example "pressure cooker chicken marsala" You will discover a new cooking life you never imagined. There is a learning curve but even your early learning missteps won't be disasters. There is an enormous wealth of tutorials on youtube, the web, and books. I honestly feel like I wasted a big part of the last 20 years of my cooking life by not having my pressure cookers.

Anyone else use one of these?

Once the beans or stew are finished, you can leave them in the pot, on the "keep warm" function for as many hours as you like. This holds the temp at 140ºF, and will develop the base liquid. Doing so completely obviates the time saving aspect of the pressure cooker. You can also cook your beans or stew on the slow cooker function, without pressure. However time saving is not the only benefit of using the PC. You can brown and saute in the pot and not in a separate skillet or saucier. The ease of just throwing ingredients in the pot and walking away from it while it cooks without having to fiddle with it is huge. You can put all your bean or stew ingredients in the pot in the morning, fire it up, it will pressure cook for the time you set, then flip over to "keep warm" mode. You come back at 5 or 6 or whatever, to a pot full of awesome goodness! On the other hand you can use the speed of the PC to make beans and stew in less than an hour and eat it. Will it be as good as the all day cook? Maybe not, but it will be pretty darn good! You get something really good to eat in no time. Another thing you can do with perishables is prep all your ingredients ahead of time, put them in the pot and put it in the fridge. Then when you are ready, pop the pot in the PC and fire it up. For non perishables you can put your ingredients in the pot, set the timer for a start time well ahead, and it will fire up at the predetermined time. This is great for steel cut oats for breakfast, put in your ingredients at bedtime and set it to start a few minutes before you get up. Or put your water and pasta or rice in the pot in the morning, set the start time, and come home to a finished pot of same. Converts to this device just rave about it, and I am one of them!

Happy Thanksgiving. Two 18-20lb Turkeys stuffed and tied with Sausage, sage, bread crumb and other goodies. Those two were finished in the Primo xl and the two stuffed Pork Loins were cooked in the KK. If you haven't deboned a turkey I'll tell that it takes alot longer than the person doing it on You tube. One Turkey roll was 25 inches long so the 23 was just shy of real estate. It fit well at an angle and twisted but I changed it over to the other cooker because I needed two anyhow. So here's a few pics from the end. Very easy to carve up and serve

Sure do Mack, entertainers dream! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I love the electric pressure cookers,in fact I’m going to make some Polynesian pineapple chicken today.

Gotta love SV, eh Alimac.