Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Turning up the heat

A quick one this evening while I'm in a particularly productive mood...

I finally succumbed to the urge and bought a pressure cooker this evening. Not a cheap buy for a pot with a rubber seal and a couple of pressure valves, but I thought it was probably worth the investment. After one evening I can see that it absolutely will be.

As I've mentioned before, the Spanish supermarkets are kind enough to give away bones for free. I can pick up three of four chicken carcasses while I'm doing my normal shopping and normally I save them in the freezer for when I have a few spare hours. My particular recipe for chicken stock normally takes around five hours, all in. This is not only a lot of time to have to be at home, but it also uses a lot of gas.

Well, for a stock which is just as rich as the normal one I now need to spend around 30 minutes, which is a serious saving not only of time, but of gas too. After the attempt I now have several litres of chicken stock cooling down, to be put in the fridge and freezer for soups, paellas and sauces.


There are a huge number of websites dedicated to pressure cooking and I'll be trying a few of the recipes out soon. The idea that I can cut down the time and money spent on the cooking process by such a huge margin is going to make life that fraction better.

5 comments:

Seepz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Seepz said...

Well talking about pressure cooking, It sure is a time saving way to cook. However I have never been a fan of pressure cookers. They scare me like hell.

I am out of the kitchen as soon as I hear the whistle. It could be because I am accident prone or that the pressure gets to me. :)

Unknown said...

Normally I'm terrible with reading instructions. I just like to dive in and experiment (usually to bad effect). This time however I made very sure I knew exactly what was happening. The idea of having a pan of superheated water screaming at me is slightly daunting. But the outcome is great :-)

Seepz said...

Hmm It was good that you went through the instructions because the first time I used it I did not. Somehow my mother's howling through the phone that day about pressure cooker usage helped me avert disaster.

Daunting it is but no doubt great results and yummy food. :)

Njoy the superheated pan!

N I am sorry I never thanked you for the condolences after all. Thank you now! :)

Unknown said...

No worries