Lifting the pressure off cooking

We’ve got you some weird and wacky pressure cooker recipes to try this Sunday. Or next

What’s the most unique dish you’ve made in a pressure cooker, we asked our readers. 
Popcorn. 
Common. 
Maggi. 
Well, you were lazy to wash the vessels in the sink, right? 
Cake. 
It’s the most common Indian jugaad. 

“I throw a can of condensed milk in a cooker for a quick and easy Dulce de leche. You get the perfect caramelised milk in less than a third of the time that it would take to make it in an open saucepan. Besides, you don’t need to keep monitoring the cooking either. It’s a hack most chefs worldwide know and follow,” says chef and restaurateur Yajush Malik, Gallops.

Culinary consultant Rakhee Vaswani uses the cooker often at her Khar studio. “When I was 10, the women in the building, including my mom, would make nankhatai and take it to the neighbourhood bakery to have them baked. Then came the first round of electric ovens that looked like an instant pot or cooker, without the whistle. We all stood over it like a bakers community, watching as they got baked. Later, I learnt that baking is a science, but once you’ve mastered the basics [heat, ingredients, etc] the cooking medium doesn’t matter. Cooking and baking are therapeutic for me, and while I have the best equipment now, I always find ways to make things in the kitchen. You can easily grill or bake or steam in a cooker; you just need to find the right way,” she says.

Here, chefs and food consultants share recipes and tips to help you make unusual dishes in the pressure cooker.

Apple and Berry Cobbler

Rakhee Vaswani
“It’s my favourite recipe from my training days at Tante Marie Culinary Academy in Surrey, but I ended up making my version of it when challenged to make it in a pressure cooker,” says Vaswani. She prefers using an aluminum cooker which she preheats like an oven for five minutes on medium heat. “The dry heat cooking method is used here to ensure even cooking or baking. Air is not a requirement as  the cooker is not a large chamber,” she adds.

Ingredients
400gm Apples peeled and chopped
150gm Mixed berries (frozen) 
35gm Caster sugar
1 1/2 tbsp Flour
1 Star anise 
A few cubes of bread (to soak the fruit juices ) 

For the Cobbler
60gm Butter, cut in pieces
150 gm Flour 
25 gm Oats
30 gm Caster sugar  
20 gm Brown sugar
95 ml Sour cream
2tbsp Milk 

A few chopped Walnuts

Method

1. Pre-heat the pressure cooker for five minutes on medium heat. Pile the fruit in a bowl, mix in the sugar and flour and toss with the fruit. Add the star anise tucking it into the centre.

2. To make the cobbler, roughly rub  the butter into the flour; It should look coarse, stir in both the sugars. Make a well in the centre and add the soured cream and 11/2 tbsp milk. Gently bring the mixture together using a palette knife. Add the remaining milk if necessary to get very soft dough. Place a small spoonful of the mixture on top of the fruit to give a cobbled effect, leaving little gaps for the fruit to show through. Sprinkle brown sugar. 

3. Cook in the cooker for 30-40 mins, check after 20 minutes and further bake until the top is golden brown, crispy, and cooked through. The fruit should be tender, and the top should be risen and golden. Serve hot with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. 

Pro tip: Instead of water, use salt with a stand, the way we use for dhokla, so the bottom won’t get burnt.  Place the baking pan or mould over the stand. Use the lid of the pressure cooker without the rubber gasket, so that steam is not created, and don’t use a whistle. Adjust bake time according to the size of your cake or streusel.

Steam Chicken Roast

By Varun Inamdar

This one is a pure kitchen accident that turned into a masterpiece after a few calibrated trials. “It is important to understand the workings of a pressure cooker for this. Once that is clear, there is no end to an experiment of any kind. The dish comes out perfectly roasted on the outside, just like a tandoori chicken or an oven-roasted chicken—succulent and juicy as if it is braised. Quite a trick but if you follow it to the tee, you will never get it wrong,” says Inamdar.

Ingredients
For the brine 
1 litre Water
2 tbsp Salt
2 tbsp Vinegar
1 tbsp Grain sugar
1 whole Chicken (not more than 1 kg)

For the marinade
2 inch Ginger
1/4 cup Garlic cloves, peeled
4-5 nos Green chillies
2 tbsp Curd
1 tsp Garam masala
1 tsp Cumin powder       
1/2 tsp Chaat masala       
1 tsp Coriander seeds       
1 tsp Red chilli powder       
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
1 1/2  tbsp Salt
2 tbsp Oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Coriander leaves, fistful

Varun Inamdar

Method
1. For the brine, heat water, salt, sugar, and vinegar until it begins to simmer. Stir in all the ingredients till they dissolve. Place the chicken in this water and keep covered for an hour. Remove the brined chicken, pat it dry and keep aside.

2. Mix all ingredients of the marinade, and run into a smooth paste. Rub into the chicken. Take a pressure cooker, place an elevated stand inside it, and pour water till it reaches the height of the stand. 

3. Place the chicken in a cooker vessel and put it on top of this stand. Lock in the lid. Do not place the whistle. Allow the chicken to steam for 40 minutes on medium flame. By then, the water would have evaporated, and the chicken would have charred beautifully on the outside, yet retained the juices within. Lift the vessel carefully and transfer the steam roast chicken onto the serving board. 

Pro tip: Marinating it well will create a taste balance, and tenderise the meat further. The water level in the pressure cooker  must be just right—too much will produce excess steam, and under roast the chicken, vice versa and the chicken will be too dry. Hence, it has to be at the level of the stand—no more than 220 ml per kg of chicken.

Laccha Paratha

Chef Kunal Kapoor

“My family, especially the men, loves to cook. I have seen them make rotis inside a kadhai and calling it tandoori roti without the tandoor. So, for me, making a spiced paratha in a pressure cooker was effortless. The thick wall of the pressure cooker radiates heat slowly, cooking the parathas leisurely. This process gives the  parathas a texture similar to that from a tandoor. It cannot replace a tandoori paratha but it’s the next best thing,” says Kapoor.

Ingredients
For the dough
1 cup Whole wheat flour
1 cup Maida
3/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Ajwain
1 tsp Kasoori methi
Water as required 
Masala filling
1/4 cup Urad dal (skinless)
1 tbsp Fennel seeds
3/4 tsp Asafoetida
3/4 tsp Turmeric
2 tsp Chilli powder
1 tsp Black salt
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Coriander powder
1/2 tsp Garam masala
11/2 tbsp Dry mango powder
A few Green chilli chopped
6 tbsp Butter

Kunal Kapoor

Method

1. Mix atta, maida, salt, ajwain, and kasoori methi with just enough water to knead it into a hard dough. Let it rest under a wet cloth for 10 mins. Knead again, and divide into four equal dough balls, cover with a damp cloth and rest for five mins.

2. Dry roast the urad dal, grind along with fennel seeds, asafoetida into a fine powder. Empty onto a plate and add turmeric, chilli powder, black salt, coriander powder, garam masala, and dry mango powder. Mix well. 

3. Sprinkle some dry flour on the work top and roll out one of the dough balls flat and thin. Pour 11/2 tbsp of melted butter and sprinkle the masala on top. Spread. Add chopped green chillies, sprinkle dry flour and fold it like a fan. Press them together and start pleating the dough from one end like a pagdi, overlapping the layers. Tuck it in the end. Once all the parathas are rolled, cover with a damp cloth and let them rest for 10-15mins in the fridge for the butter to solidify which will give us our perfect lacchas. Dust the counter with some dry flour and roll out the dough balls into thin parathas. 

4. Heat a pressure cooker on high flame, without the lid, till it is too hot to touch. Wet the back of a paratha with damp hands and carefully stick it to the inside of the cooker wall. Stick as many parathas as you can at a time. Cook over medium flame for a few minutes and then carefully turn the cooker upside down and increase the flame to high again, and hover over the flame till slightly charred.

Flip the cooker again. Cook over medium heat till the parathas are well done. Take them off one at a time and serve hot.
 
Pro tip: Make sure there is no oil or fat at the bottom of the paratha or inside the cooker. Apply little water under the paratha before sticking it on the pressure cooker wall and make sure to use tongs to remove the paratha, never use your hands or you may end up burning yourself.

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