<story><title>How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39058736</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shostack</author><text>Have had one since Black Friday.&lt;p&gt;I feel generally competent in the kitchen to the point where assembling a nice meal (dare I say gourmet?) from scratch without a recipe is relatively easy for me.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;ve found the Instant Pot to have a steep learning curve.&lt;p&gt;For starters, you can&amp;#x27;t easily check on the food while it cooks, so if you are experimenting with large batch sizes and timing you are kind of gambling and have to wait till it is done (sometimes an hour) to see if you ruined something.&lt;p&gt;It is hard to find consistent info on how long to cook certain things, and it is easy to overcook things into mush.&lt;p&gt;And for anyone citing cooking time of a couple minutes... That&amp;#x27;s just misleading. Most recipes quote how many minutes to set it for. They do not tell you it takes upwards of 15 minutes to come up to pressure in some cases, and depending on the release instructions, some things can take another 20-30 minutes to release pressure if it is a large volume of liquid.&lt;p&gt;That said, it makes amazing steel cut oatmeal and we&amp;#x27;ve had a couple other successes.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love more recipes that were purely easy quick prep, toss it all in, no extra cooking steps (like finishing in the oven), and good for making easily freezable and quick to reheat one pot meals. Many recipes I&amp;#x27;ve found are overly involved to the point where the IP seems unnecessary.&lt;p&gt;I desperately want to use it more, but so many recipes fail to meet the above criteria. Hopefully that improves. Maybe my expectations are just too high?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chrissnell</author><text>The secret to the Instant Pot, I&amp;#x27;ve found, is using it for things it does well.  Beans and bean-based dishes are a home run every time.  Chicken broth and beef bone broth are great, too.  Slow cooker favorites like pot roast and pulled pork?  Not so much, in my opinion.  These dishes need more time to break down the collagen slowly without destroying the meat and veggies.  I much prefer them in the slow cooker.  Oatmeal is great but I can make it faster and better on the stovetop.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been working on adapting family favorite recipes to the IP.  My favorites so far:&lt;p&gt;My Cajun mother-in-law&amp;#x27;s real deal red beans and rice recipe:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gist.github.com&amp;#x2F;chrissnell&amp;#x2F;2ee0a820b7ba7c25a12d1b253d1aaf48&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gist.github.com&amp;#x2F;chrissnell&amp;#x2F;2ee0a820b7ba7c25a12d1b253...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;My grandmother&amp;#x27;s refried beans from her regionally famous 1960s-era Tex-Mex cookbook: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gist.github.com&amp;#x2F;chrissnell&amp;#x2F;c87a98b7ee3239065737eaf14657db71&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;gist.github.com&amp;#x2F;chrissnell&amp;#x2F;c87a98b7ee3239065737eaf14...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How the Instant Pot cooker developed a cult following</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39058736</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>shostack</author><text>Have had one since Black Friday.&lt;p&gt;I feel generally competent in the kitchen to the point where assembling a nice meal (dare I say gourmet?) from scratch without a recipe is relatively easy for me.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;ve found the Instant Pot to have a steep learning curve.&lt;p&gt;For starters, you can&amp;#x27;t easily check on the food while it cooks, so if you are experimenting with large batch sizes and timing you are kind of gambling and have to wait till it is done (sometimes an hour) to see if you ruined something.&lt;p&gt;It is hard to find consistent info on how long to cook certain things, and it is easy to overcook things into mush.&lt;p&gt;And for anyone citing cooking time of a couple minutes... That&amp;#x27;s just misleading. Most recipes quote how many minutes to set it for. They do not tell you it takes upwards of 15 minutes to come up to pressure in some cases, and depending on the release instructions, some things can take another 20-30 minutes to release pressure if it is a large volume of liquid.&lt;p&gt;That said, it makes amazing steel cut oatmeal and we&amp;#x27;ve had a couple other successes.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d love more recipes that were purely easy quick prep, toss it all in, no extra cooking steps (like finishing in the oven), and good for making easily freezable and quick to reheat one pot meals. Many recipes I&amp;#x27;ve found are overly involved to the point where the IP seems unnecessary.&lt;p&gt;I desperately want to use it more, but so many recipes fail to meet the above criteria. Hopefully that improves. Maybe my expectations are just too high?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>elithrar</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;pressure-cooker-recipes.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;pressure-cooker-recipes.h...&lt;/a&gt; is a great resource. The Texas chili is incredible: it&amp;#x27;s about ~10 mins of prep (saute beef; prep chilis), 30 mins under pressure and ~10 mins to boil off the excess liquid at the end and thicken. When compared to the hours it&amp;#x27;d take in a dutch oven or slow cooker, it turns &amp;quot;weekend meals&amp;quot; into weekday ones.</text></comment>