MetaChat - Finding myself at loose ends this morning, I hauled out the pressure cooker

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

26 September 2010

Finding myself at loose ends this morning, I hauled out the pressure cooker →[More:]

Sorry, nothing exciting like an explosion happened. :-)

I'm practicing making brown rice. Protip: Use a stainless steel bowl, uncovered, INSIDE the pressure cooker. You avoid burning the rice. I learned that the hard way. I'm about to see if take two worked better.

The cooker I used today was my grandma's, and I have a larger one my dad bought me years ago. The larger one is better in that it's stainless, but I suspect the smaller aluminum Grandma hand-me-down will get more use if I keep up with it for stews and soups and such.

Do y'all ever use a pressure cooker?

post by: Stewriffic at: 10:10 | 11 comments

On try #2, the brown rice is gluey and not all absorbed. I may "need" to get a rice cooker. :\

posted by Stewriffic 26 September | 10:21

My mum had one that she used to use to cook scrag end of lamb to inedibility, and it scared me to death. It had these rattlings weights on the lid and I always thought it was going to blow up.

posted by Senyar 26 September | 10:50

What kind of stove top cooking methods have you already tried and rejected?

I have found I always get nice brown rice through these steps:

1) Heat some oil in a regular pot and stir one unit of dry rice in the oil to toast it for a minute or two.
2) Add two units of water, cover, and turn up the heat.
3) When it starts to boil, turn to the lowest stetting of your burner and set a timer for 45 minutes.

Coating each grain with oil keeps them separate. Works very nice with bulgur, too.

posted by maudlin 26 September | 11:44

Maybe you need to change plans and make an eponysterical stew. :-)

posted by oneswellfoop 26 September | 11:57

I'm with the foop on that!

posted by iamkimiam 26 September | 12:45

Rice cooker is totally worth it. I hate kitchen gadgets, I thought I didn't even like rice all that much, but rice cooker is totally worth it. I use it all the time and love love love it.

posted by occhiblu 26 September | 13:08

Maudlin: I do that normally, and it still doesn't work. I can make white rice like a champ, but brown eludes me. What I made today has the texture of risotto. Fine, if that's what you want, but what *I* want is separated, fluffy rice. Which I've had before, just can't seem to make.

Ah well, the pressure cooker was fun. :-)

posted by Stewriffic 26 September | 13:51

As long as YOU didn't feel pressured...

posted by oneswellfoop 26 September | 15:37

Are you using short grain, long grain or Basmati brown rice? My experience with the three types shows a definite clumpy to granular progression.

Of course, if you're using the same rice twice and getting bad results only some of the time, there must be something else going on, but I generally find that Basmati brown gives me the fluffiest results.

But go for the rice cooker! Roger Ebert wants you to do it!

posted by maudlin 26 September | 17:55

Another voice chiming in in favor of the rice cooker. Much easier, cleaner, and more fool-proof than stove-top rice. Plus, the vessel is usually nonstick, so there's virtually no clean-up after.

posted by mudpuppie 27 September | 11:42

Oh, how I love my Sanyo rice cooker. I also love my electric wok. They make beautiful music together.

Seriously, I stir fry once or twice a week, along with making a batch of (perfect) rice, and eat from that for lunches and dinners for most of the week. These appliance are worth their weight in gold.

posted by bearwife 27 September | 15:12

← Inspiration pads. || Why isn't there a cliche thesaurus? →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN