advice please re electric pressure cooker

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merryone

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I use my slow cooker very regularly, but it's not always practical to use it. I know very little about pressure cooking, only that my mum used to have one and it was big, scary and made a lot of noise, therefore I've never been compelled to buy one. Was watching bid with oh the other day and saw the electric pressure cooker being demo'd and we both thought it looked fab, and that you could make meals from scratch in less than half hour (not including prep time of course, but still..) We ordered one and with P&P it came to £30 which is pretty good as the price for an electric pressure cooker is a lot more than that elsewhere including that particular model - it's got mixed reviews on Amazon, but mostly good. It arrived yesterday..it's a lot bigger that it looks on screen, but that's not too much of a problem as we weren't hoping to leave it out on the worktop anyway, I looked at the instruction book, which is very basic, and I was hoping it would come with a small recipe book as a lot of these appliances do - this didn't. It contained about 4 rather complicated and "faffy" recipes which would end up taking longer to cook than were you just to bung it in a conventional oven or cook it on the hob. I honestly don't see myself ever using it, and oh has said the same. He just thinks we should sent it back, obviously it would cost a small fortune to do this, but I then remember that they collect larger items, but do they charge for collection?

Anyone who's got this pressure cooker, feel free to give me some tips, because it looks so good in the demo, although it's not really a demo, they just show them stirring food round, which could in all intents and purposes have been produced by another means and just plonked in there afterwards. On average the recipes in the leaflet will take at least an hour..then they reckon you have to wait 15 minutes for some recipes before you open it..even soup takes 40 mins to cook - ridiculous.

I'm prepared to lose the £7.99 P&P, though I'm not happy about it, but as I say I can't see me ever using the thing!
 
merryone said:
I use my slow cooker very regularly, but it's not always practical to use it. I know very little about pressure cooking, only that my mum used to have one and it was big, scary and made a lot of noise, therefore I've never been compelled to buy one. Was watching bid with oh the other day and saw the electric pressure cooker being demo'd and we both thought it looked fab, and that you could make meals from scratch in less than half hour (not including prep time of course, but still..) We ordered one and with P&P it came to £30 which is pretty good as the price for an electric pressure cooker is a lot more than that elsewhere including that particular model - it's got mixed reviews on Amazon, but mostly good. It arrived yesterday..it's a lot bigger that it looks on screen, but that's not too much of a problem as we weren't hoping to leave it out on the worktop anyway, I looked at the instruction book, which is very basic, and I was hoping it would come with a small recipe book as a lot of these appliances do - this didn't. It contained about 4 rather complicated and "faffy" recipes which would end up taking longer to cook than were you just to bung it in a conventional oven or cook it on the hob. I honestly don't see myself ever using it, and oh has said the same. He just thinks we should sent it back, obviously it would cost a small fortune to do this, but I then remember that they collect larger items, but do they charge for collection?

Anyone who's got this pressure cooker, feel free to give me some tips, because it looks so good in the demo, although it's not really a demo, they just show them stirring food round, which could in all intents and purposes have been produced by another means and just plonked in there afterwards. On average the recipes in the leaflet will take at least an hour..then they reckon you have to wait 15 minutes for some recipes before you open it..even soup takes 40 mins to cook - ridiculous.

I'm prepared to lose the £7.99 P&P, though I'm not happy about it, but as I say I can't see me ever using the thing!
Click to expand...

I have no personal experience (or even know anyone who has any) of electric pressure cookers. However, as far as i'm aware (happy to be corrected) even Argos no longer sell them which I find odd (they did sell a Morphy Richards model, and it received favourable reviews, see link).

I agree the demonstrations are far from detailed however, Birkett claimed a Brisket of Beef takes 30 minutes as opposed to 14-16 hours to get the same results. I have to say I personally find that somewhat hard to believe.

http://reviews.argos.co.uk/1493-en_gb/4236193/reviews.htm
 
Last edited:
I really want to use it, but from what info I've gathered, some of the more expensive models have a browning feature, this one doesn't so you have to brown stuff in a normal frying pan first which is a bit of a pain
I might have a quick scout round town today and see if I can find a cookery book especially for electric pressure cooking...I don't fancy my chances, but I'll try as sending the blinking thing back's the last resort, but it might be the sensible option!
 
if you're wanting to send it back try 'parcel2go.co.uk' - usually they don't charge that much (should be under a £8 within UK via Hermes or Collect+)
 
merryone said:
I really want to use it, but from what info I've gathered, some of the more expensive models have a browning feature, this one doesn't so you have to brown stuff in a normal frying pan first which is a bit of a pain
I might have a quick scout round town today and see if I can find a cookery book especially for electric pressure cooking...I don't fancy my chances, but I'll try as sending the blinking thing back's the last resort, but it might be the sensible option!
Click to expand...

Well that is strange Merry because Mark Ryes was selling it just the other day and claimed he was browning a Lamb Shank in it?

I have to say it did sound like there was a sizzle, but not much of one.
 
Paul_s said:
if you're wanting to send it back try 'parcel2go.co.uk' - usually they don't charge that much (should be under a £8 within UK via Hermes or Collect+)
Click to expand...

I think they'll collect large parcels from your home but I need to find out whether this service is free of charge, but thanks.
 
Wirral70 said:
Well that is strange Merry because Mark Ryes was selling it just the other day and claimed he was browning a Lamb Shank in it?

I have to say it did sound like there was a sizzle, but not much of one.
Click to expand...

As they are claiming it does something it doesn't I would use DSR in this case. They can pick it up for free.
 
merryone said:
I really want to use it, but from what info I've gathered, some of the more expensive models have a browning feature, this one doesn't so you have to brown stuff in a normal frying pan first which is a bit of a pain
I might have a quick scout round town today and see if I can find a cookery book especially for electric pressure cooking...I don't fancy my chances, but I'll try as sending the blinking thing back's the last resort, but it might be the sensible option!
Click to expand...

I have one I got from QVC and I love it. It took me a while to work out what to do as I had never had one before. Here are some tips:
1) there is a website called pressurecookerrecipes.org (I think!) and there were some nice recipes on that
2) I use mine when I haven't got the 8 hours to wait for something like a chilli or a curry in the slow cooker.
3) even though I can braise in mine I find it better to build the chilli in a large frying pan and then chuck it in for say 15mins to the pressure cooker. The resultant meal is like it has been gently cooked for hours! If you braise in the pan of mine and then pressure cook straight away it can overheat which causes it to shut down which is annoying
4) basically, you don't have to be specific about timings and liquid so just try it out. If you use your normal recipes then they will cook in about a quarter (very roughly!) of the time in a normal oven so a beautiful tender casserole can be done in 30/40 mins instead of a few hours.
5) I don't use it for soup - what is the point? I don't like the way it cooks rice. It is brilliant though for chucking together a delicious main course when you don't have time for the slow cooker.
6) try frying an onion, chucking in 500g of mince, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans in chilli sauce, some seasoning and then throw in the pressure cooker for 15/20 mins whilst you make the rice. Decorate with a bit of fresh chopped coriander and serve.
7) when it has done its pressure cooking time you just leave the pressure to release gradually. That is the extra 15 mins . Yu can usually release it manually quickly if you want to. Use some silicone oven gloves to release the vent. I think it's better and easier to let it release gently.
8) there will be a silicone type of ring in the lid part and you need to make sure that is tucked nicely in place or it cannot build the pressure up. Mine comes out for washing.
9) try the barbecue chicken recipe on the website I mentioned as that is delicious!

Enjoy!
 
Why not just google some recipes? If you've managed to find this message board to ask about it, then you can probably just look up some recipes. I'm sure it won't matter which/model of cooker you're using since they all work the same.
 

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