I heard about the infamous "Instapot" about 6 months ago and to be honest, sort of brushed it off as the next "fad" kitchen gadget. I was determined I wasn't going to get one because lord know's I do not need another kitchen appliance. I have two slow cookers and a pressure canner which converts to a pressure cooker. I also have a yogurt maker which I must admit kind of is terrible, it's about 50 years old and the jar lids have all broken.
Over the Christmas season, I am pretty sure 25% of my friends received an "Instapot" for a present. My mom even bought one. Seeing people I know in real life talk about the quick meals they have been making peaked my interest. After much research, I decided that I needed the Instapot that had the largest size and the most functions (of course I did...). My problem was that it was $220 plus tax, which would throw it into the $250 range with the wonderful 12% tax rate in beautiful British Columbia (aka Bring Cash).
I looked at some of the other brands that were out there. One that peaked my interest was one called the GeekChef. I was initially drawn to this one because it had a Canning function and a Sous Vide function. I do a lot of canning in the summer months and a pressure canner is a necessity for canning anything outside of jams, acidic fruits, and tomato based stuff. Anything that is lower in acid needs to be pressure canned to kill the spores which could cause botulism. I invested in a Presto 23 quart Pressure Canner last year. It's easy to use once you get used to the concept, but it takes FOREVER to come up to pressure. I have tried cooking in it as it converts to a pressure cooker. The meal I made in the pressure canner turned out good, but it took awhile to come up to pressure, and then back down in pressure. It isn't recommended to speed the de-pressurization of a canner/cooker. The pressure up and down adds at minimum an hour to the process. The Sous Vide function also peaked my interest because well, I never heard of it before, and it looked cool. It's basically cooking the food placed in a sealed plastic pouch until it hits a perfect temperature. It looks amazing, but the reviews on the Sous Vide function of this one weren't the greatest. They are also pricier than some of the other options. I decided if I could find one in Kamloops at a decent price I would consider this brand. I had zero luck finding one of these GeekChefs in Kamloops.
We were heading into town to do some shopping on Saturday. I decided I would look around at the stores we were in to see if they had any options available. I was in Costco, our last stop, and I walked by the small appliance aisle. I noticed a box that looked like an "Instapot" so I headed down that aisle. To my chagrin, it was an Electric Pressure Cooker! It was one of the brands that I had looked at on Amazon. It was called a Power Pressure Cooker XL. It was an 8 Quart, which was bigger than most, it had a canning feature, had a bunch of pre-set functions, and the best part, it was only $119. This is very similar to the Instapot version I was looking at that was $220. The only thing it is missing is a yogurt function and some of the pre-sets. I am sure you can still make yogurt in it, just no pre-set button. It felt like Christmas! You can also get this version on Amazon but it is about $50 more expensive.
Last night I read through the manuals on the operation. It sounded kind of tricky to operate but once I took it out of the box this morning and actually did the testing that was required before first use, it actually wasn't that hard at all. Basically, you need to make sure all of the pressure sensors and seals are clean and working properly. You add your ingredients, close the lid, turn the pressure gauge to closed, and press the buttons for your recipe. It took about 15 minutes to come to pressure, which seemed long, but I had cold water in the pot. Once the pressure was up to where it needed to be, the pot made some hissing noises and the red pressure button popped up. This scared the life out of me, but the same thing happens with my pressure canner, so I assumed that this was a normal feature. Once pressure is reached, the timer starts counting down, which was 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes were over, the machine beeped.
The next step in the test phase was to de-pressurize the unit. With the pressure canner, you always let it naturally come down in pressure, which takes forever. The instructions for the Power Pressure Cooker de-pressurization was to get a pair of tongs and manually open the pressure valve. I thought that would be super easy, but it was definitely not as easy as it sounded, and it took me a couple of tries. This is not something you would want to do without some tongs and definitely not with your bare hands. When you move the pressure gauge to open, it spurts and starts letting out a gush of steam. My husband came out of the bedroom to see what all of the commotion was about. It dropped in pressure enough to lower the red safety button in about 3 minutes. That was super fast considering it takes about 30 minutes for my pressure canner to come down in pressure. Testing was a success.
I decided later in the day to try cooking my arch nemesis, hard-boiled eggs. I can cook and bake some pretty impressive stuff, but hard boiled eggs are not one of them. I love to eat them, hate the whole process of cooking them and peeling them. I always end up getting shell everywhere, cracking off half the egg in the process. The last time I made them they looked like mangled white rocks. My mother had done some eggs in her unit as a test, so I thought I would give it a try. The recipe said to use the rice cooking feature of the unit and to add about 1.5 cups of water. I placed 8 eggs on the little tray thingy that came with the unit, added the water (hot this time to see if it would help speed the pressurization), closed the lid, turned the pressure gauge to lock, and pressed the rice button. It took about 10 minutes this time to come to pressure, and then 6 minutes to cook. The recipe I had said to let the unit come down in pressure naturally, which took about 5 minutes. It then said to put the eggs in an ice bath once out of the cooker.
After about 5 minutes in the ice bath, I decided to take them out and start the process that I despise, cracking and peeling the eggs. I took one of the eggs and tapped it on the counter to crack the shell a bit. I got under the membrane and the shell peeled off pretty easily. Even the one egg that had a crack in it when it came out of the cooker peeled very well with no damage.
I rinsed the eggs off, because I hate tiny bits of eggshell, and then sliced one open. The inside of the egg was a little discolored which leaves me thinking that they were overcooked. The next time I make these I would either lessen the cooking time by a couple of minutes and still let them de-pressurize naturally, or I would leave the cooking time at 6 minutes and then de-pressurize manually so they aren't sitting in a hot water bath for longer than needed.
I added the eggs to a container and poured a salt brine over them (water with 1 tsp of salt). This will keep them fresher longer. Overall the egg experience in the cooker was much more successful than my normal egg cooking experiences. A couple of changes the next time and I think that these will be perfect.
Thanks for reading!
Jen
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