I have been convinced to go PC…

No not happy and nice, you know me but instead Pressure Cooker. I was reading Volume 2 of Modernist Cuisine on Techniques and Equipment.

And they were big’n up Pressure Cookers, as a great way to make stock and cook other things quickly. The reason is in the name “Pressure” which raises the temperature of boiling water.

“When the gauge on your cooker indicates 1 bar / 15 psi of pressure above the liquid, the boiling point of water inside can be as high as 120C / 248F. Increasing the temperature of the cooking stock by 20C / 36F forces both the diffusion and the flavor reactions to run faster than they would in an open pot. The liquid in the pressure cooker will not boil, despite the elevated temperature”.

So on Sunday, I was shopping for a clock, but got sucked into a black hole which was labelled Kitchen Supplies. Morphy Richards has a new Morphy Richards 48815 Digital Electric Pressure Cooker.

I was always scared of having a ticking time bomb on my hob going clackity clack clack as the pressure comes out. Also the idea of being scalded to death by opening it too soon or Jamilu’s story of a lid being embedded into the ceiling kind of put me off. But this cooker is electronically controlled so you cannot screw it up, which is good for me. Here it is unboxed.

On the way home from picking this up from Tesco Direct (great service and prices) I stopped off at the local Sainsburys and picked up:

Onions (small)
Mushrooms (closed cap)
Celery
Carrots (look through the loose ones for the thin sweet ones)
Potatoes (medium roasting)

Here they are prep’d for the Pot Roast.

Then I wandered over the beef aisle, and luck would have it that they guy from the butchers counter was just putting down some discounts. I got over ½ kg of rump steak for £2, deal.

I am writing this in the lounge and there is about 15 minutes left on the Pot Roast and the smell is killing me… I am so hungry. It reminds me of when I was a child. My mother would get up on a Sunday morning and brown the beef and then prep the vegetables before church. When we returned from church opening the door to the house was heaven, and could not get out of my suit quick enough to go yuuuummmm (thanks for all those Sunday dinners Mom). This took my Mom about 4.5 hours to prep and cook. I am attempting to do the same in 1.5 hours today with my new PC.

A couple more prep steps. I boiled up some bottled water and added a beef stock cube to make up about 450 ml of beef stock. Then I enhanced it with a good glug of mushroom ketchup. I had been drying some bay leaves that had been knocked off my bay tree during the past storms and grabbed two leaves for the pot.

Another cool thing about this PC is that it has a browning setting. I put some salt and pepper on the meat on both sides. Started the browning setting in the PC and added some olive oil. After 5 minutes it was up to heat and I browned the beef on all side in the pan. This is good as you do not loose any of the goodness of the browning juices before you continue to cook.

Now I was ready to cook. Add the carrots, celery and onions. Pour in the beef stock and mushroom ketchup liquid. Put the potatoes on top of all the rest of the vegetables and meat. Put the bay leaves into the liquid on either side.

Now it is time to put the lid on tight and set the pressure valve. I set the timer for an hour and it is off heating. Ok something is wrong as there is too much steam coming out and it has been 10 minutes with the time on 1 hour. Back to the manual. Ahhhh now I see the steam valve is 180 degrees the wrong way

WRONG

RIGHT

I am such a dumb ass.

Here it is plated up, wow yuuuummm

So how was it? Well it is still really, really good because the house smells of Sunday Pot Roast and I am taken back to my childhood every time I walk into the room. The device worked perfectly and I felt safe using it, bare the user error with the valve. It is quiet no clackity clack clack.

The jus had a fantastic flavour. I saved it off to make gravy with the leftovers. I like taking the carrots, onions and potatoes and frying them in butter while heating the meat in the gravy which makes it really moist. To be honest left over Sunday Pot Roast is almost as good as the first time. The other thing you can do is grind the beef and mix with raw onions, mayo and horse radish to make beef salad which is to die for.

Because I boiled it at the beginning for 10 minutes, and the fact I had less meat than the recipe called for I believe that it was a bit over cooked. The veg was pretty mushy, but that is pot roast. The meat fell apart under the knife, but that is also pot roast. Next time I am going to try it for 45 minutes and make gravy with the jus, in memory of my father who finished Sunday Roast with left over gravy on bread, now that is pudding!

Here is the key thing. After work I can serve up a Sunday Pot Roast taking only an 1.5 hours including prep and cooking which used to take 4 hours and was almost as good as me mums.

And because it is still light at 9:30 PM, I am going to include a picture of Stonehenge, as it is the summer solstice.