Fasting for Russian Orthodox Christians: Shrimp Coconut Curry in the Pressure Cooker

It's that time of year again, when the Orthodox world begins fasting, so here's another quick and easy recipe to get you through until Christmas!

This ranks among my easiest recipes, so feel free to throw this together when you have only minutes!

First, toast rice in your pressure cooker until the kernels give off a nutty aroma. Add a heaping spoon of curry powder and stir. Add coconut milk in the ratio of 1-1 liquid to rice, and a package of frozen spinach, and stir food again until well mixed. Lock the lid and cook on med (not high) until the pot reaches high pressure; for a stovetop cooker, lower the heat until the jiggler is barely rocking, time 18 minutes and then use natural release to unlock the lid (don't wait any longer!).
Open the lid, correct your seasonings (go easy on the salt) and add a package of frozen shrimp. Stir thoroughly and replace the pressure cooker lid. Wait ten minutes.
If the shrimp isn't cooked thoroughly at this point, heat the food in the pot for a few minutes until the shrimp are opaque and pink. Serve!

No pressure cooker? Toast rice and spices; cook rice in usual proportions with coconut milk instead of water. When done, add frozen spinach and shrimp, and stir; keep pot on low heat until shrimp is cooked.

Pressure Cooking Rice on the Induction Burner

One of my family's so-called "poverty meals" that turned out to be a favorite even in prosperous times is chili rice. Yep, rice with a can of chili and some fixings added to it.

I hadn't tried rice in the pressure cooker yet, so I decided to go all in and try the pressure cooker and the induction burner. Now, my Presto pressure cooker advises that you cook the rice in a bowl, but I didn't have a bowl big enough for two cups of cooked rice that will fit in the pot, so I decided to cook it in the pot itself.

Because you don't lose water (much) during pressure cooking, you don't need much to begin with. Since I was a child, I've always used the formula 2 parts of liquid per one part of rice. But with the pressure cooker, you need only 1 1/4 cups of liquid per one cup of rice (kind of).

I toasted the rice for a while, then added the liquid. I stirred for a bit until the dish reached a simmer, then locked the lid, set it on 212F while the water came up to a boil, then set it on 248F to come up to pressure.

Now here was my problem: I can either set the burner at 212F, which is not enough to jiggle the rocker, or at 248F, which is violently jiggling the rocker. So I tried to compromise, and alternated every minute or so between 212 and 248. Then the phone rang when it was set at 248, and, well . . . a few minutes later I noticed that the noise from the rocker had ceased. The formula I had said to set the timer for 18 minutes but it still said 6 minutes to go.

So I turned off the burner, waited for the lid to release, and held my breath to see what had happened.  (That's the part I hate about pressure cooking--not being able to see what is going on!) The rice turned out beautifully, and here is the finished dish:

Gorgeous, right?

And the moral of the story is: do your homework, but remember at some point you're going to have to improvise!

Omelets, Cast Iron, and the Induction Burner

With the Nativity fast coming up, it's time to clean out the fridge. I had a dozen eggs laughing at me, so I decided to try omelets in the cast iron skillet on my induction burner.

I decided first to try the traditional method of cooking in a hot pan (well, 284F). That worked fine, but then I remembered reading that eggs cook at 160F. My induction burner has 140F and 176F, so I tried 176F (low and slow, like for tough meat).

Note: When I make omelets, I add lots of salty ingredients to the filling, so I don't add them to the eggs.

The low and slow method produced eggs that were just as good as the hot pan, plus I got the chance to try flipping the omelet (which worked great, thanks to the nonstick qualities of well-seasoned cast iron). The eggs flipped out the pan without sticking (I couldn't blow them out because I had three eggs in the pan). Additionally, I got the eggs done without being too browned on the bottom (just a tiny bit for the Maillard effect).

If you don't want to try flipping, put a lid on the cast-iron pan.

Next I'm going to heat the pan and see how evenly it heats on induction with my laser thermometer. I don't know what the results will be, but that's the fun of science!

Pressure Cooker + Induction Burner, part 2

So we had a cold day here and I happened to look at the weather forecast in time, and I had a pound of black beans on hand, so I decided to make black bean soup. I soaked the beans for approximately 24 hours (draining the bean soaking liquid into my garden) and then added the soaked beans to the pressure cooker, added water and spices to the level of the beans, which made it just to the halfway mark on my 4-quart Presto pressure cooker, and put it on the induction burner to heat at 212 degrees. After four minutes it was simmering, so I increased the heat to 284 degrees and put on the lid. It took about seven minutes to come up to pressure, then I reduced the heat to 248 degrees and set the timer for four minutes.

And here's the result:

Yep, perfectly cooked, tender beans. I have the feeling I'm going to be doing a lot more of this this winter!

Pressure Cooker + Induction Burner

So those of you who have been following my adventures in pressure cooking know that I have tried pasta in sauce to great effect. Well, last week I acquired an induction burner, so you know I had to try this out!

First off, let me say that the dish turned out exactly as I intended. I had read about pressure cookers and induction burners earlier, so I chopped mushrooms and opened the jar of sauce (okay, I was in a hurry to get dinner done). I added oil and turned the burner on. In 15 seconds the oil was hot, and I sauteed the mushrooms. That took about a minute.

Then I turned off the burner to add sauce, pasta, water, and wine. I stirred the pasta for a bit until it was all coated with the sauce, then turned the burner on to 248 degrees F and let it go until the sauce was bubbling, stirring all the while. When the sauce started to simmer (about a minute) I popped on the lid and turned the burner to 284F. The pot took about four minutes to come up to pressure, and then I turned off the burner and waited.

At the end I stirred in some leftover kale salad and here is the result:

Well, it was good enough that I'm eating the leftovers for breakfast!

So, a point: the food gets hot really fast, so have your prep all done first. If you don't, be prepared to turn off the burner and wait. I always used the heating the pot time to do my prep, but there isn't any heating the pot time.

Also, I just used the minimum heat necessary to get the pressure. Anything more is overkill. Many of us start the pan off screaming hot and then turn down the heat. Instead, set the temperature on your induction burner to just enough to bring the pot to pressure. After all, the food needs time to cook; especially with foods that have to absorb liquid, give it that little extra time.