Among Rat's accessories is an Indian pressure cooker. I loathe it. Among it's many offenses it doesn't even whistle, so I have no idea when food is actually done; this has resulted in such sad recipes as Bisi Beli Burnt. It hisses and spits at me and likes to ooze foamy goo onto the stove top burners. And I'm always afraid it's going to blow up in my face. If Rat did not love using it so much, I would throw it out.
So when our new Instapot electric pressure cooker arrived, I set it up to cook some, rice all the while keeping my distances and eyeing it suspiciously. But it had none of the behavioral issues of the Indian pressure cooker. It was silent excep when it made a pleasant little chime to let me know the rice was done. Since I could set a timer, I didn't have to wonder when the rice was done or worry about it burning. And Instapot didn't squirt out messy goo from its valve.
The Instapot is a nifty gadget from Canada. It is one machine with many functions: it is a rice cooker, a pressure cooker, a slow cooker, a yogurt maker, and less impressively a sautér, steamer, and warmer. As a bonus the cooking pot is not made with poisonous non-stick coating, it is stainless steel. I have been lusting after the Instapot for three years now. They are a bit pricey and I could never justify the cost while we still had a working rice cooker, but our Proctor Silex Rice Cooker passed away a few weeks ago, after serving us well for three solid years, so it was time to buy a new kitchen toy, and it is awesome!
I never ate rice too often before I met the Rat. In fact, I used to make *shudders* boil-in-the-bag Minute rice. I know, I know, all I can say in my defense is no one taught me how to cook. However, since meeting the Rat my Indian food - and therefore rice - consumption has increased to the point where a rice cooker is a necessary kitchen appliance. I have gone through several of them, each leaving behind a plastic rice paddle and soup spoon as their grave markers. My favorites have been ones like the Proctor Silex, where the rice bowl and lid are removeable and dishwasher safe. Why you would make a rice cooker without a removable lid or rice bowl is beyond my comprehension, but there are many out there.
Rat brought home one such abomination when one of our rice cookers died. I loathed the thing. The lid was permanently hinged on and someone (I'm not saying it was the Rat, I'm just saying it wasn't me) would always close it up with rice still in there and the next time I went to make rice (usually a couple days later) I be greeted by a pink putrid blob when I opened the rice cooker lid.
The Instapot performs the main job that I bought it for exemplary. It makes awesome rice. So far I have tried basmati and jasmine. The rice comes out tasting and looking like the rice you get at restaurants. With all our other rice cookers (or using the stove top method) our homemade rice has always been a bit mushier than restaurant rice. Also we always end up with a layer of dried out rice stuck to the bottom of the pot. With the Instantpot, as long as I put a light coating of butter or oil on the bottom, the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pot. It is so nice not to end up wasting a quarter cup of rice every time I make it.
As a pressure cooker, I have been quite happy. Although it doesn't always reduce recipe time, it allows for passive cooking: no need to keep stirring every few minutes, no worries about something burning, nothing boiling over onto the stove top and making a mess. I infact, prefer to use the Instapot over our crappy apartment electric stovetop for most cooking tasks.
Besides rice, I have made cheesy grits, fennel egg curry, steel cut oats, and the easiest to peel hard boiled eggs. Seriously, pressure cooking your eggs is the way to go; it creates a pocket between the egg white and the shell while cooking, so when you go to peel them the shell practically falls right off ( no more ugly pock-marked eggs). Recently, I tried the yogurt making function with some regular thermophilic yogurt, and it set quite nicely in eight hours.
I am loving the many benefits of cooking with the Instapot, especially now that the temperatures are in the 80s and 90s, it keeps the kitchen nice and cool. Basically, it's like a slow cooker on crack. I can dump things in and not worry about them burning, and best of all I don't have to wait 6 to 8 hours for the food to be done.
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