Experience tells me that the largest meal I make in a pot is when I cook corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. I plan to add the potatoes and cabbage at the end of the cooking. Based on a nice average-sized corned beef (that comes in a package at the grocery store), plus the other ingredients, what size pressure cooker should I buy? Of course I'm also puzzling over whether to buy a Kuhn, WMF, Fissler, Magefesa, etc. etc. Thanks! I know nothing about pressure cooking!
Best answer:
Answer by needtoknow
Trust me I went through this you need to get the biggest one. There's not that big of $ diff and them. Oh, now I just looked at your question and I see you say pressure cooker...I'm sorry I thought you meant crock pot...
What do you think? Answer below!
I love my pressure cooker.
ReplyDeleteGet one that is bigger than you think you will need. I say this because you do need a bit of room in the cooker but there is also the possibility that you may end up cooking more in the pressure cooker as you use it more.
It is also good as a soup pot.
I start my split pea or bean soup by pressure cooking the big ham bone. Lots of flavor that way.
I just saw and electric pressure cooker at Costco for under $ 70.00 I think. The one I have is by Fagor.
Look for a pressure cooker that has good safety features. The old one I had had a weight that could be adjusted for different pressures. Low pressure could be used for vegetables and the heavier weight would be used for meats. Most of the pressure cookers will come with a recipe book play with the recipes in the book and before long you will be adjusting your own recipes.
I call it a crock pot on steroids. It will take the same meal you put in a crock pot for 8-10 hours and do it in in 45 minutes or less.
Where ever you get your pressure cooker make sure of the return policy, just in case you don't like it. Bed Bath and Beyond, with their 20%off coupon might be a good place to start. They have a good return policy.
8 quarts should do ya. read instructions you don't want to open under pressure.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I don't know size what an "average sized corned beef" would be, but I actually got the smallest one I could afford when I could no longer use the one I'd had.
ReplyDeleteThe reasons for that were because the smaller ones were less expensive and they're also easier to use, clean and store because of the smaller size.
But then I don't use mine for a lot (mostly stews, etc), so if I routinely cooked whole chickens or humongous cuts of meat/etc or just a lot of food because I had a lot of people to feed, I might opt for one of the bigger ones... larger sizes might also be good for making stocks/soups.
Check out the links in these searches for uses and recipes for pressure cookers to see how you think you might use yours:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pressure+cooker+"uses"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pressure+cooker+recipes
As for the brands, I always find it helpful to check out amazon.com.
Just do a search for one of the brands of pressure cookers you're interested in, then from that item page read all the "customer reviews" for it (see link after the "stars" rating); then go to a different brand and read those reviews. Sometimes you'll even find customers mentioning several brands just to say X is better than Y, etc. There's almost always a lot of good info in those reviews, and also often things I'd have never thought of that could be an advantage/disadvantage or a later problem.
HTH,
Diane B.