mguerra Posted September 23, 2014 Report Share Posted September 23, 2014 If you are a foodie, you NEED a pressure cooker. I won't go on at great length, if you are curious as to how this will transform your cooking life, research it. You won't be disappointed. You can cook succulent foods so fast it will make your head spin. So consider this: some of you undoubtedly saw that show on one of the cooking channels about the guy who boils his ribs before smoking them. Actually, I believe it was Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. Apparently, it gets superb results. I'm going to try something. I will pressure cook some ribs for about 10 minutes and then smoke them. We'll see if you can get excellent results in no time this way. I will experiment with pressure cooking times and smoking times to see if I can hit on a good technique. I'm thinking you can do it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted September 23, 2014 Report Share Posted September 23, 2014 Many rib places in the Chicago area boil ribs before smoking them. Some people say it's a result of the Eastern European immigrant population influencing BBQ practices that came up to Chicago from the African American migration from the Deep South. Some people think that boiling ribs is heresy. They need to get a life. If you can change the rubs and the sauces, why can't there be variations on cooking technique? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LK BBQ Posted September 23, 2014 Report Share Posted September 23, 2014 On amazingribs.com, they say that boiling ribs is giving in to terrorists! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilburpan Posted September 23, 2014 Report Share Posted September 23, 2014 As I said, there are those who need to get a life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted September 24, 2014 Report Share Posted September 24, 2014 Good luck with the experiment, Doc (haven't heard from you in a while?) Love my pressure cooker, just never thought of using it as a prequel to smoking. The challenge will to optimize the cooking time without making them mushy. I can tell immediately when ribs have been boiled - the texture is off. In most cooking, technique IS important. If you try to saute with too much oil in the pan, you're frying, not sauteing. The results will be different. Not necessarily bad, just different. If you're cooking your pork butts in a crock pot, with liquid smoke and a bottle of sauce, it might be tasty, just don't call it BBQ! Just saying! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveco Posted September 25, 2014 Report Share Posted September 25, 2014 As a child, I used to enjoy jumping around in the kitchen, while the pressure cooker was on the stove, to get it to make noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted September 25, 2014 Report Share Posted September 25, 2014 My mom's used to do that too! Newer ones don't use the weight resting on the stub tube in the lid anymore. A bit safer nowadays! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mguerra Posted September 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 27, 2014 I'm using the Secura 6 in 1 electric. http://www.amazon.com/Secura-Electric-Pressure-Stainless-Browning/dp/B008A852ZW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411787424&sr=8-1&keywords=Secura+6+in1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 After much research I bought a Fissler Vitaquick 8.5 Quart Pressure Cooker last year. Heston Blumenthal's Heston Blumenthal At Home and Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine at Home both make strong cases for pressure cookers. Perhaps I should have been suspicious, as MCaH reads like a very expensive issue of Popular Mechanics, and also extols the virtues of microwave ovens. Huh. But Heston Blumenthal I respect. His best uses of a pressure cooker are for stocks and such, the idea being that if one can get the temperature past 100 C without boiling, one can extract flavors one would have missed. Alas, I wanted to love this cooker, but most of the food that I made with it tasted sadly institutional. I found myself repeatedly cooking beets, however. Theory holds they're best baked, but this way I found the time to eat them frequently. There are some rocking recipes for Moroccan beet salads, for example. More recently I bought a VacMaster VP115 Chamber Vacuum Sealer and a pair of Anova Sous Vide Immersion Circulators (to use in 12 quart Cambros). While I've been fooling around with (and defending) all manner of ghetto sous vide over the past decade, this setup brings me much closer to what you'd find entry level in a small restaurant, and the different is dramatic. (I never want to see my bulky, clumsy SousVide Supreme again, for example.) One easily uses this equipment, all the time for everything. One can dither over what temperature to cook meat, but it turns out that vegetable cell walls reliably break down at 85 C (185 F), so one can do all manner of cooking at once in a single water bath at this temperature. The best farmers market vegetables taste spectacular after 45 minutes to an hour this way, in a little salt and olive oil, perhaps a splash of sherry vinegar to tweak the acidity. And there's no incentive to make leftovers, just prep exactly what one wants to eat. Alas, this has changed my beet habit. Unless I really start taking to Heston Blumenthal's stocks, I'm never pulling out my pressure cooker again. Yes, the boiling point of water is arbitrary and does not deserve to rule a kitchen. However, I have yet to figure out anything that benefits from going over 100 C that doesn't benefit even more by going under 100 C. First and foremost, proteins such as all manner of barbecue, separately or in concert with a Komodo Kamado. (I'm also in the "cook your brisket slowly" camp, as intrigued as I am by other approaches. There's a pattern here I can't articulate.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffshoaf Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 I'm a big proponent of pressure cooking, especially during the work week when I don't have a lot of time to cook. I used a modern stove top cooker for a couple of years, but got an Instant Pot appliance recently. It's touted as a 7 in one cooker - pressure, slow, rice, steamer, saute, yogurt, and one more that I can't remember. I've used it for pressure and slow cooking, and the saute mode for browning meat prior to pressure or slow cooking. It's really nice to come home from work, dump in some dried beans, a bit of pork, spices and water and have a nice pot of beans in 25 minutes - less if I planned ahead and had the beans soaking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 I also bought the Anova Sous Vide and am loving it.. I precook my tri tips then refrigerate them for a while before smoking them and then browning them down on the lower grill.. no chance of overcooking the thiner part of the tri tip. I could cut them up and pull them earlier but I like to play with my Anova at this point.. Sous vide is the only way to cook shrimp.. I used to cook them and then stop the cook in ice water to get crunchy shrimp.. this is much easier.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 Great to hear that others have discovered the Anova. I was an early convert. The newer model is even better. But no buyers' remorse. Syz, I also bought a nice Cambro and lid to do larger cooks in, but most of the time, I'm just cooking for me, so the stock pot works just fine. I mainly use my pressure cooker for canning, but have made some seriously good batches of bolognese in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted September 28, 2014 Report Share Posted September 28, 2014 I use a cooler for my tank and then cover the top with large bubble wrap.. super efficient and very stable. The heater runs much less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mguerra Posted October 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 That boiled rib episode was " BBQ Road Show" at John Mull's Meat Market and Road Kill Grill in Las Vegas... Do you like McCann's steel cut Irish oats? Best oatmeal ever. You can stand at the stove for an hour stirring it. Or... Throw in the oats and the water at bedtime, set the pressure cooker to go off in the morning for 10 minutes, and wake up to a hot pot of McCann’s! Make stock, soup and broth in a flash, jambalaya in minutes, it's a long list of what you can do. Somebody buy one from Syz, bet he will give it up cheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 http://www.amazon.com/Pressure-Perfection-Editors-Americas-Kitchen/dp/1936493411/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412271340&sr=1-3&keywords=pressure+cooking+cookbook http://www.amazon.com/Emerils-Cooking-Power-Delicious-Starring/dp/0061742988/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412271450&sr=1-1&keywords=pressure+cooking+cookbook+emeril Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted October 3, 2014 Report Share Posted October 3, 2014 Do you like McCann's steel cut Irish oats? Best oatmeal ever. You can stand at the stove for an hour stirring it. Or... Throw in the oats and the water at bedtime, set the pressure cooker to go off in the morning for 10 minutes, and wake up to a hot pot of McCann’s! Somebody buy one from Syz, bet he will give it up cheap. Mine is manual, won't do this. I love McCann steel cut Irish oats. My Irish ancestors described a very slow process for cooking these oats. I have one of the better Zojirushi rice cookers on each coast. While we most often use it for organic brown rice from http://massaorganics.com/, there's a porridge setting and a timer. In my opinion, this is the way to go, to wake up to Irish oats. (Hey, at least I'm consistent.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
