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Eater has a longer article on how sourdough, and bread in general, is back in fashion and the changes being inflicted on the millenias-old staple by tech bros.
“I spent a lot of time — I don’t want to say ‘debugging,’ because that sounds really technical — but just working on recipes and trying to teach myself and there really weren’t a lot of materials out there at the time to do that,” he told me by phone this spring. “With bread baking, you kind of follow an algorithm to produce a result and that result isn’t always what you think it’s going to be, so you kind of have to step back and debug and diagnose the steps along the way. How did I go wrong here? That’s because technically the temperature might not be right or the dough strength might not be right. That iterative procedure and working through those algorithms kind of appeals to engineer. There’s the precision part of it, but also, when it comes down to it, technical people like to work with their hands. You want to construct something and I think bread is a good way to do that.”
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 21 2018, @11:47AM (9 children)
The (electric) pressure cooker is almost worth it alone for its ability to turn dried black beans into prepared in just under an hour (or even less if you give it the pre-soak). I made two cups of dried beans earlier, then took off the lid and threw in more ingredients to make a nice black bean soup. I did prepare several of the ingredients on the stove since I didn't want to remove the beans to saute things.
I have made caramelized onions in the pressure cooker a couple of times. My understanding [seriouseats.com] is that it caramelizes at a rate that would be impossible otherwise since the higher temperature would normally burn the onions. So it is the optimal way to caramelize, not the stove. I did get it "mush" french onion soup form when I did it, but it may be possible to avoid that [reddit.com].
I've used the same device (Instant Pot) to make about 10 gallons of yogurt or so at this point. Someone on here told me they had a lot of trouble making yogurt from scratch, but I have found it to be remarkably easy. Very cheap too. Only thing is that you want to run the device with some water+vinegar in order to clear out the smells from previous foods. Unless you're fine with a savory-tasting yogurt.
I've also made pulled pork in the thing. And it's at this point that I realize that the list of things I make with it is almost exactly the same as what you have already made. Except I make my rice in a separate rice cooker.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 21 2018, @03:47PM (1 child)
I've got to agree on the beans. I do love a good pot of beans, and it's *so* easy in the instant pot. Had never heard of carmelized onions that way, but what do you know, there's an easy recipe I'll have to try. Curious - I thought you needed a considerably higher temperature than boiling water to carmelize, and even at 15psi you only get around than 40*F/20*C more, so probably about 30F/15C for the 11psi of an instant pot. I guess that's enough.
Indeed, I've found yogurt extremely easy as well, though I notice a lot of the recipes are gratuitously complicated, which might make it easy to miss a critical step amongst all the noise. Pasteurize, cool to below 110F, mix in starter. Everything else seems to be noise. (I immediately freeze ~1/2 cup from each batch to start the next). I have found there's a wide range in yogurt flavor and firmness depending on what brand of yogurt you use as your initial starter - and of course you need to make sure it contains live cultures or it won't do anything. It's can also be worth straining if you like it thick (greek style) - I use a flour-sack towel in a colander and let it sit until it's thick enough - apparently you can even make "yogurt cheese" if you let it drain long enough, but I haven't tried that yet.
Hadn't heard the water+vinegar suggestion for cleaning - I'll have to give that a shot. I've declined to make yogurt a few times because I had cooked something strong-flavored recently.
Ricotta is well worth trying if you haven't yet - way tastier than store bought, and about as much work as yogurt. Uses a lot of milk though, you get about 1c cheese for 4c milk. Pasteurize, then immediately stir gently while *slowly* pouring in 1/4c 5% vinegar per half gallon milk and let sit for 20 minutes for curds to finish forming, then spoon them out with a slotted spoon. Pour the acid in too quickly and you get giant super-rubbery curd, like bad cottage cheese (Though supposedly you can stir it in before pasteurizing, as it needs both the heat and stirring to kick start the curdling process). You can also use lemon juice instead of vinegar for more flavor, but the acidity isn't as consistent. I tried draining it through my yogurt arrangement, but it didn't work at all - the finer curds immediately clog the towel. Even with cheesecloth it takes forever to drain if you try to just pour the whole mix through.
You can also make fresh cheese/farmers cheese by immediately tying the fresh curd in a double-layer of cheesecloth and putting it under a weighted plate for an hour or 12, depending on desired dryness. Loses a lot of the milky richness though, and personally I think it *really* needs heavy seasoning. Also, it doesn't melt like normal cheeses.
I've never used a rice-cooker, but find the IP makes excellent rice, and will handle brown, wild, etc. just fine as well using normal pressure cooking for a longer period. I think one of the things that really sold me on it initially (in addition to the fact that a computerized pressure cooker is just brilliant), was that it could double as a rice cooker and yogurt maker - things I'd never been able to justify the cupboard space for. As well as being a (somewhat lacking) slow cooker. Though frankly, I don't think I've ever used it as a slow cooker, though it did replace it. Why slow cook when you can get as good or better results quickly?
Oh, one last great use: making broth from left-over bones, carcasses, and vegetable trimmings (just toss them in the freezer until you've accumulated enough). The soup setting avoids a hard boil, so the broth stays fairly clear, and you don't need all the time and attention that kept me from ever making a decent broth. Then use the broth instead of water for just about anything that could use more flavor (like beans, rice,...)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 21 2018, @04:53PM
I paraphrased the advice from the manual for my pressure canner. These websites seem to identify the sealing ring as the part that collects the odors, and recommend using the Steam setting for 2 minutes with 2 cups of liquid, either water, white vinegar, or water with lemon rinds and/or some baking soda:
https://www.thekitchn.com/the-best-way-to-get-the-funky-smell-out-of-your-instant-pot-sealing-ring-250302 [thekitchn.com]
https://mycrazygoodlife.com/remove-odor-from-instant-pot-remove-the-smell-from-sealing-rings/ [mycrazygoodlife.com]
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(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday November 21 2018, @06:11PM (2 children)
I have never heard of using it to caramelize onions. But it doesn't seem intuitively to be a great option.
Caramelization starts happening rapidly around 160c according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Maillard reaction is probably also happening (even if it isn't the primary effect with onions) at very similar at 140-165c according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
But an instant pot is only good for like 15psi at most (and as I understanding working pressure is more like 11psi), and stovetop pressure cookers seem to top out around 22psi (yes pressure is in freedom units because those are the sources I quickly found).
Take the boiling point of water at best case 38 psi absolute (since the pressure cooker is relative to atmosphere obviously, and I am rounding up for science) then according to the first answer I found [engineeringtoolbox.com] you are only going to make 129c.
Baking soda of course lowers pH which speeds both of these processes.
Now the bottom of the vessel will obviously reach higher temperatures even if only in hotspots, and will therefore allow some caramelization, but optimal caramelization would seem to require holding a consistent temperature around but preferably above 160. Time to rig up an electric element to a sand bath and do some experimenting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday November 21 2018, @06:27PM (1 child)
This is the link I actually wanted to share. It goes into greater detail about the case for using a pressure cooker to caramelize onions:
https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/01/the-food-lab-pressure-cooker-caramelized-onions-onion-soup.html [seriouseats.com]
I enjoyed the results from when I did it. I might try it again tomorrow if I have leftover onions.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday November 22 2018, @05:48PM
Intruiging... I'm half tempted to go pick up some onions to try for this afternoon's feast, but I think I'll wait for a more leisurely day to experiment.
Thank you - that's a much more informative page than just a recipe. Hopefully the combination of high altitude (-3psi) and the instant pot's mere 11psi "high" won't push me below the magic temperature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 22 2018, @12:34AM (3 children)
I assume you've got one of the InstantPots that have the "Yogurt" button? I've got the Lux model, which doesn't. No wonder I had no idea you could make yogurt in these things.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 22 2018, @02:18AM (1 child)
Yes. Before I got one I just near boiled milk in a pot, let it cool and added the starter, put a lid on it, and stuck it in an oven that could hold a temperature of ~115°F for a long time. Dead simple but there are probably a lot of ovens that can't go that low.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 22 2018, @06:03AM
That's what the oven light is for.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 22 2018, @02:24AM
I should add that if you can't hold the temperature at 115°F, you can also just leave the milk out to cool back to room temperature [soylentnews.org].
Turns out making yogurt is really easy. That's why yogurtmaking has been around for thousands of years.
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