What's For Dinner #65 - the Brand New New Year's Edition - January 2021

The presentation is spectacular ( as always).

Not so much a tweak, rather just take a look at some of the various IP FB groups or websites. Amy + Jacky, Rootitoot, so many others. Depends on what kinds of foods you like: many great comfort food recipes, etc. Pressure cooking is a great method for these IMO anyway. I’ve used conventional stove top pressure cookers for many years, but after I started playing with the IP, I gave them away. Risotto in the IP is terrific, as are soups, stews, etc. Let me know if you are looking for a particular dish & I’ll try to point you to a good recipe or technique…

1 Like

Get Melissa Clark’s cookbooks.

1 Like

Good to know.

Karen, I’ll start a new thread for this Instapot topic.

3 Likes

This was the most attractive and picturesque thing about my dinner tonight. Which was sketti and sawce (the latter from the freezer) and TPSTOC on top.

An insanely busy first week of the year, and today was the worst of the lot.

The boyz had to wait their turn for dinner until Momma was settled with at least her pre-dinner.

16 Likes

Yum! What a treat!

Yogurt sauce? Or tomato?

It was sour cream (light!) , since she felt it would be more familiar. I said "we have yogurt… ", she said, " but not sweetened. "

Sigh. I don’t have sweetened yogurt. I used the yogurt with lamb “kabobs” yesterday, which was also well received.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love sour cream.

1 Like

I agree with @ChristinaM. Melissa Clark’s InstaPot cookbooks are the best.

2 Likes

You didn’t ask me, but I’ll answer anyway as a lifetime PC user and pandemic IP user :joy:

In general, you get what you put in - if you dump and boil, that’s what the outcome will taste like.

If you take a bit of extra time to marinate, saute, brown, get things going first, and use the IP as the convenience tool it is - to speed up things - the results will taste like that, and have more depth. Some things you can put that extra effort in at the end.

In general, use less liquid for things that make a sauce - there’s less evaporation, and otherwise you will spend more time at the end boiling off excess water.

I like using the pot-in-pot method for many things too.

And you may already have discovered, the heating element at the bottom can lead to “food burn” signs at odd moments, even when there’s plenty of liquids.

I don’t love it for things where depth of flavor matters - indian gravy dishes, for example - by the time the sauce gets to the right point, meat is overcooked - and most likely there’s been “food burn.”

I’ve recently started using it for less obvious things like blanching vegetables or as a station for boiling multiple rounds of pasta (I leave the water in and use a spider to fish out the pasta or veg).

Basically a regular PC but more hands-off given that it’s electric and has a timer.

4 Likes

Do IP owners use it to steam eggs, quick cook potatoes, yogurt making, canning? Is the IP better at these things vs. pot on stove?

I keep seeing that article about the shortage of bucatini :joy:

3 Likes

Nicely done!

Re pancakes - do you flour the dough and the surface (and the rolling pin if necessary)?

The way we roll out chapatis (there is a type that is identical to these except for the hot water dough) is to create a surface that enables the disk to move as you’re rolling it. You add a tiny bit of flour as you go to facilitate the movement (not too much or you end up with a dry / floury end product). Then they actually rotate as you’re rolling (with a light hand, or they won’t move).

Having used the same recipe you did in my NYE multi-pancake situation, my 2c was that hot water dough is much harder to handle for a not-very-different outcome vs chapati dough. But i also did what you did - oiled one side of the lower ball. Didn’t have the curling issue - I think that’s a rolling practice thing combined with the extra-stretchy hot water dough thing.

Try the painted crepe technique sometime - I liked those better for less effort (steaming briefly to reheat and rehydrate just before eating was helpful there).

3 Likes

Rigatoni alla gricia, broccolini, and wine.

16 Likes

Dinner in an Instant looks like what I’m after. Thanks for the heads up.

1 Like

The jambalaya I posted here was made in the IP. We were very happy with the results in 20 mins flat!

1 Like

Favorite recipes include caramel salmon, maqluba (chicken, rice, and eggplant), ricotta, red lentil soup, tangerine carrots, shrimp scampi, osso bucco.

1 Like

I like rice in the IP too - usually needs a bit of fluffing at the end for my taste (we mostly use basmati).

We made excellent risotto in the IP a couple of times too.

1 Like

Those all sound delicious.

1 Like

Yes the rice was terrific. Risotto is on the list, def. I want to try a cheesecake.