Pressure Cookers??

[Neeves]

If you google 'Shuttle Chef' and (I suspect) Mr D's Thermal Cooker you will find a whole series of recipes. You can make anything from porridge to sponges, bread, casseroles and soup.

For casseroles, stews and soups - we just take old fashioned recipes, tonight we had borsch, but it could have been cock a leakie, make it the morning (basically boil all ingredients and once boiling place saucepan in insulated container) and eat (drink) in the evening (its usually hot enough to eat without re-heating within about 8hrs of initial boil). Don't be intimidated - its not difficult. We use ours for soups, casseroles and stews (bake bread and make porridge other ways).

 

[NornaBiron]

If you google 'Shuttle Chef' and (I suspect) Mr D's Thermal Cooker you will find a whole series of recipes. You can make anything from porridge to sponges, bread, casseroles and soup.

For casseroles, stews and soups - we just take old fashioned recipes, tonight we had borsch, but it could have been cock a leakie, make it the morning (basically boil all ingredients and once boiling place saucepan in insulated container) and eat (drink) in the evening (its usually hot enough to eat without re-heating within about 8hrs of initial boil). Don't be intimidated - its not difficult. We use ours for soups, casseroles and stews (bake bread and make porridge other ways).

'Wonderbag'also have loads of recipes. A great bit of kit

 

[bjl]

NB

How do you get on with the PC being on top of a swinging cooker please ? Does it upset the balance of the gimbals ?

The cooker swings on its gimbals in exactly the same way as it does for other pots, pans, etc.

 

[Brent Swain]

I usually can a couple of deer before heading south, or before facing winter. Can a lot of fish when the opportunity arrives. I have found some great canners in scrapyards, for $2 a pound, or welded my own up from scrap stainless.
Make cooking beans or pea soup, quicker by far.

 

[Flica]

Whatever you decide to buy make sure that you can easily obtain spares - the valve and gasket will need changing once a year, on average. That £25 Lidl bargain may be expensive in the long run if you are unable to get spares (ask me how I know!)

I've been using pressure cookers for the past 65 years. The early ones were aluminium, by Prestige, in the UK.
I've had the same Tefal pressure cooker on the boat for the last 20 years (it's a discontinued model) and never had to change valve, or sealing gasket. However aluminium ones always distort (I've had 3 of those) and even changing seals and safety valves never makes them work any better. So I now only buy stainless steel ones - the best value for money was a 3 litre one, made in China, from Aldi - cost £12.
The one on the boat is a 4 litre Tefal Optima, much taller than most cooking pots @ 175mm, but just fits on a minute Leisure Products LPG stove, with an od of 250mm. It's used for cooking spinach, innumerable stews and bean-based soups. Under way it is comfortable just retained by the stove-top fiddles. My 2nd most popular cooking utensil, it's used about once a week even when I take most meals out.
The Chinese cheapy, used at home, has a problem with its safety interlock - supposed to be automatic the phenolic mechanism has worn, do that you have to fiddle to get it to pressure.
Still have two old bent Prestige pressure cookers and a modern 5 litre Tefal at home - the Chinese is the most used mainly because it's a convenient size for two.
The ones at home are used for bottling garden fruit, the only exotic use for the one on the boat was the cooking of a lobster in Lulworth Cove. I'm afraid I was quite vengeful, it had bitten my toe severely, as I rowed back from the potter who'd sold it to me. Cooked on the way back, sons and I enjoyed it anchored in Studland. I think it cost half a crown.
As Norna suggests it's good to have spares, (as with all things on a boat) but careful choice of the pressure system and brusque handling means that they're seldom used.

 

[GHA]

Top tip I came across a few days ago which works for the Hawkins pressure cooker anyway - brown rice, put in a dollop of olive oil. Stops most of the little bits of foam coming out of the weight and leaves the rice much less sticky.

Getting very fond of brown rice in a pressure cooker , tasty, easy, healthy and cheap

 

[Neeves]

Cheap - I'm with you!

Try black sticky rice (needs lots of time normally) with coconut milk and sugar/honey (though we are using a Shuttle Chef - same result). I have suspicion it might not meet your 'healthy' definition - but it is certainly tasty - better for cooler climes.

Jonathan

 

[sailorgirl]

I use a pressure cooker onboard for all the usual soups, stews etc but also without bringing to pressure it’ll bake a reasonable loaf (crusty on the bottom and sides but not on the top but the skipper doesn’t mind) and it’s great for popcorn ( try using coconut oil for a hit at sundowners)! Make your own hummus by soaking chick peas for an hour in hot water then drain and place in cooker with a litre or so of water, bring to pressure and cook for 20 mins. Drain reserving some of the cooking liquor and mash beans along with some garlic, lemon juice and sesame paste (tahini) with a potato masher or fork or blender adding the cooking liquor bit by bit til you reach the desired consistency. Keeps in the fridge for about a week.

I also own a Mr D’s Thermal cooker which gets used almost every day. However for cooking white rice I usually bring 1 cup of water to the boil together with half a cup of rice, simmer for a couple of minutes, turn off the gas and cover with a t-towel whilst I cook the rest of the meal - rice takes about 15 mins to cook this way and uses a very tiny amount of gas.

 

[Neeves]

I also own a Mr D’s Thermal cooker which gets used almost every day. However for cooking white rice I usually bring 1 cup of water to the boil together with half a cup of rice, simmer for a couple of minutes, turn off the gas and cover with a t-towel whilst I cook the rest of the meal - rice takes about 15 mins to cook this way and uses a very tiny amount of gas.

Its exactly how every self respecting Asian girl would have cooked rice! - before the advent of the electric rice cooker.

Jonathan

 

[Neeves]

Coincidentally:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...cooking-perfect-rice-how-to-dale-berning-sawa

 

[jeanne]

Also useful as an extra oven. Take out the rubber seal first though or it will harden. I used mine to bake bread and make the occasional cake plus roast chicken. Of course, any heavy pan will do the same, but as pressure cookers tend to be reasonably large and bigger than most saucepans on board, that´s what I used mine for.

 

[UK-WOOZY]

the boat i just got (jeanneau sundream 28) just has a stove no oven. how would one make a PC into a make shift oven? thanks

 

[Brent Swain]

A friend began using a cast iron pot on the coals in his wood stove, to bake spuds, veggies , venison etc. Then she began using it to bake cinnamon buns and bread.
I did that for a while, then found out that it works as well on the stove top , just takes longer. In warm weather I put spuds in, and cook on low heat on a propane burner. The nice thing about spuds is ,if you burn one side of one, the burnt taste doesn't travel thru the spud. You just cut the burned part off, and the rest tastes fine.
Baked spuds without an oven!

 

[NornaBiron]

the boat i just got (jeanneau sundream 28) just has a stove no oven. how would one make a PC into a make shift oven? thanks

Use th pressure cooker on the smallest burner, make sure that you do NOT use the weight and gasket.

 

[Ric]

Never had a problem with that. Longer passages offshore solo I tie it down with some fishing wire, the contents slowly morph from day to day as some gets eaten and some gets added

I share your culinary style An improvement for offshore solo passages is to have two PCs, one on each burner. One is for the perpetual stew, the other is for the perpetual porridge.

 

[Robin]

I share your culinary style An improvement for offshore solo passages is to have two PCs, one on each burner. One is for the perpetual stew, the other is for the perpetual porridge.

that was the OYC method on the 1962 Tall ships race. The skipper called it Dynamite Stew IIRC.

 

[Brent Swain]

The V shaped rubber seals on some Presto cookers are finicky, and hard to get to seal sometimes. The flat ones are far better.
Love my Italian made Lagostina. The pressure is against the O ring from the inside, to so it can get pretty old and hard , and still work.
The pressure was a bit too low, so I converted the rocker to a 17 lb Presto rocker.
Scrap yards can be a good place to find pressure cooker .

 

[Normalfornorfolk]

I share your culinary style An improvement for offshore solo passages is to have two PCs, one on each burner. One is for the perpetual stew, the other is for the perpetual porridge.

Sounds a bit like the perpetual mayonnaise bowl in the House of Lords dining room that caused perpetual squitters.

 

[Mr Cassandra]

The V shaped rubber seals on some Presto cookers are finicky, and hard to get to seal sometimes. The flat ones are far better.
Love my Italian made Lagostina. The pressure is against the O ring from the inside, to so it can get pretty old and hard , and still work.
The pressure was a bit too low, so I converted the rocker to a 17 lb Presto rocker.
Scrap yards can be a good place to find pressure cooker .

I find the GRPressure cookers better than the steel ones .

 

[Mctavish]

Excellent information, thanks.

Any suggested makes / models? I see Prestige and Kuhn in the thread. Any others?

Also recipe books? I saw Catherine Phipps Presure Cooker Cookbook in Waterstones earlier which look quite good.

Buy this book! BUY IT! It's amazing.
Recipes I love: ham hock with braised veg, risotto (oh, the smell!) , borscht, jewelled pilau rice, minestrone, harira, sausages with lentils, poached chicken, pot-roasted chicken. I've made Harira so many times I've lost count. I treble the amount of peppers and add them at the beginning. It's hard to fail! I love my pressure cooker.
Oh, I forgot, suet bacon and onion roll! Scotch eggs (haven't actually made this yet). I did make blackberry and apple steamed pudding. It was phenomenal. This is making me very hungry.