Hungry Onion members have posted recipe ideas throughout dozens of cooking threads. Having recently acquired a Instapot 6 qt Ultra model, I went looking for tips and users experienced with nuanced recipes. I’m def late to the party; and, so many models now exist.
I’d like to encourage a thread where we (ok, clearly you already know far more than I do) can further discuss and learn recipes, tips and resources in one place rather than bogart a WFD thread (like I did yesterday*sorry).
What’s the solid method for steaming eggs in an IP?
Do potatoes, say in a cold salad, do well in an IP.
What do you avoid cooking in an IP?
Fav methods
Please post your favorite IP recipes and why fails occurred. With so much to learn from, I look forward to your contributions to avoid wasting time, energy and food making mistakes.
On my to try list includes:
Yogurt, rice pudding, short ribs, steaming jammy eggs, saving time making potato salad, fish, canning jam.
The recipes are a little bland but good for learning, and they have information on things to do and not do (for instance, they recommend waiting until the cooking is done to add dairy). They’ve been around for a few years now and have covered yogurt making and hard boiled eggs. If you search from their main site finding specific answers should be easier than YouTube, but they do sprinkle tips into their YT videos that can be helpful.
This link
has cooking times for individual ingredients and some general tips for beginners.
I’m not completely sold on instant pots but there are some definite advantages. They are good for rice, oats, bone stock (considerably quicker than stovetop iirc) and honestly the dump and stir recipes are pretty ok.
But I barely scratched the surface tbh, so I hope you have fun experimenting!
I still do eggs on the stovetop. The IP hogs my countertop, and by the time it hits pressure, the pot on the stove has already come to a boil, so not much of a time savings.
I love being able to have a pot of soup in an hour, even starting with dry beans.
Make sure you have more than one of the large silicone rings that go in the cover. I find that no matter what I do they retain an odor. I have three rings - the clear one that came with the pot and a red and a blue one that came as a set. I use the white one for anything unseasoned, such as beans. The red one for anything with chiles, especially Mexican and Indian foods, and the blue one for “lightly seasoned” foods.
Also new to my ultra mini ip. Love it for beans so far. There is a part called the anti-block shield inside the lid. The manual gives instructions to install (? Mine came with that part in place) and to remove.
To remove:
‘Using your thumb, push the side of the anti-block shield towards the lid rim and lift up with some effort. The anti-block shield should pop out”.
Close to hurting myself or the lid but it does not “Pop” off.
A key thing is to remember that it takes time to come up to pressure. I started adding notes to my recipes of how long that took.
A few favorites as the prep to deliciousness ratio is so good.
Colombian Chicken Stew. A dump recipe that is way more than the sum of its parts. Lends itself to all kind of tweaks as well, one of my favorites being to add 1 tsp of turmeric which adds an amazing depth of flavor. For me, 25 minutes at pressure is too long, I go with 20 plus 6 minutes natural release.
Lamb Shanks. So much quicker than stove/oven and so delectable. I add more vegetables.
Tomato Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta. This really cemented my love for barley. I add a box of baby spinach at the end and it’s a very satisfying meatless dinner. (The blogger doesn’t credit it but this is an Ottolenghi recipe, converted for Instant Pot.)
Exercise #1-a pot of Rancho Gordo cranberry beans.
Pros-one lb. pressure cooked in 25 mins. as directed by Melissa Clarks cookbook on IP.
No bean house aroma, my wife loathes upstairs odors.
Bean liquor-7 cups for future soup stocks and chili.
If you prefer tender, no tooth beans, 25 mins is spot on. Older beans especially.
Cons-I like a toothy cooked bean, RG beans need no more than 15-20 mins. Natural release does the last min cooking anyhow.
I cooked 1 lb in 4 garlic cloves, olive oil, salt and filtered water re M Clark’s cookbook. Broke down the lb. into 3 containers for future use.
Overall, a huge timesaver; tweak cooking time by 10 mins. when using fresh, dried beans.
I’ve earmarked steak pizzaiola for Sunday in the IP. We’ll see. I find it’s not an appliance I think of naturally so I’m using it to see if we will use it enough to keep it. I think our son will get more uses out of it.
I cooked half a bag of RG pintos, excellent results. I added one shallot and did notice the smell on the silicon ring. I soaked it in dawn and baking soda and the smell was gone.
. So far made a beef stew and yesterday did a bag of kidney beans
