Soviet pressure cooker with two valves. Pressure cooker riddle or incomprehensible phenomenon

Winter holidays are reflected in increased pressure on kitchen utensils... For this reason, I carried out a planned audit of the condition of a 5 liter Soviet pressure cooker "Svarma". In 2011, her working valve crumbled, and I immediately replaced it with a Chinese one.
To anyone interested in what happened to the Chinese valve over 6 years of operation, I will try to show and explain.

The pressure cooker "Svarma" ("WELDING MATERIALS") had both valves (working and emergency) with the same operating principle - pressure steam-gas mixture balanced by a spring. This principle allows this pressure cooker to be used when shaking - for example, when cooking in the gimbal of a yacht - which is very convenient. But nothing is eternal. Contrary to expectations, 4.5 liters of "Swarma" produced in 1992, in 2011, not the most important part - a rubber gasket - failed, but the spool of the WORKING valve broke off from the stem.
In the photo there is an emergency valve, similar in principle, but different in design - it does not have a lever to check its action.

And then I immediately felt that without "Svarma" life had become boring. Therefore, I acted on the problem in two directions at once - I bought both a new 3 L Chinese pressure cooker and a Chinese EMERGENCY valve, which I hoped to adapt to replace the failed Svarma OPERATING valve.
Since I had to conduct a bold experiment, I bought as many as 2 valves. I bought at tomtop, but now he no longer sells such valves. Therefore, I found several similar ones on Ali (the query “pressure cooker valve”), and now I inserted a link to the most worthy one - it already has a pip on top, not a ball - so a modern valve should be better than my 2011 sample.

Their principle of operation is the same as that of the native Swarma valve, but the design is different. At "Svarma" a huge resource was provided by sealing pairs "aluminum-aluminum", and the Chinese valve was with silicone gaskets in both pairs: both movable and fixed.

In addition, the reliability of the fastening of the Soviet valve was superior to the Chinese one: the Soviet designer applied more threads on a longer shank.

And he made the nut thicker:

Wrench sizes for both nuts are the same:

Most importantly, as Citizen E.P. Fox, I convey in words: EMERGENCY pressure of the Chinese valve = 1 atmosphere = WORKING pressure of the Soviet valve.
Thanks to this feature, it became possible to carry out the "USSR-China" relay race without major problems for "Svarma" - "Svarma" itself did not receive irreversible structural changes. Find a working Soviet valve now, it can again be inserted into the "Swarma".
Which, generally speaking, is a happy exception to the rule. Just as "science has a lot of guitars," so does the china industry have no less of them!
The photos below show that the emergency valve sticking out of 3 liters of the Chinese pressure cooker (it is covered with some unstable black type of "enamel type") differs in execution from the compatriot Internet posing next to it.
The native valve does not have a knurl for assembly and disassembly, it is captured through the steam lines.

The original valve had a seal made of ordinary rubber, which quickly welded, and had to be replaced with paronite. The Internet valve has, as I already wrote, a surprisingly durable silicone gasket.
In the photo lies the idle Internet twin of the hero of the review:

In addition, the native valve has both an increased diameter and 2 flats to prevent unscrewing. The photo shows the same idle Internet twin of the hero of the review and it is clearly seen that the size of the turnkey valve is not 14 mm, but more - already 17 mm.

In its original state, the Chinese emergency valve has a red slippery ball at the end of the stem. Apparently, according to the local designer, the Chinese women have some kind of heat-resistant fingers that cannot be scalded with a stream of steam when checking the valve.

The Soviet designer did not provide for a hot check of the emergency valve at all (see the very first photo) - the emergency valve stem cannot be gripped even with pliers.
I have already written a lot, but not every modern user imagines "Swarma". There she is!

In order not to burn my hands, I removed the ball from the rod, cut the M3 thread at the end of the rod, and lengthened the rod with some kind of resistant steel pin with an original radio engineering fate. The radio-technical origin of the hairpin has led to the fact that electroplating the studs did not suffer at all for more than 6 years of operation.

I also replaced the ball - this time with an electrical product - with a bakelite (= heat-resistant) cover of a relict Soviet plug. The photo shows another example of such a fork, so that the origin of the cover is clearer.

The photo shows that the seemingly most capricious element of the Chinese valve - silicone gaskets - has not changed at all over 6 years of operation.

This is how life is arranged - according to the proverb “where you don’t sow, there it will be ugly” - silicone rubber turned out to be stronger than metal... By the way, keeping in mind the fate of the native Swarma valve, I try to carry out all the valve assembly operations with keys that maximally unload the parts from the loads.

In defense of the Soviet industry, I will write that the main gasket of "Svarma" has been working for 25 years - pah-pah-pah !!! But the welded small gasket under the valve of the Chinese pressure cooker had to be replaced with paronite, and not on the first try - it absolutely does not tolerate stretching, and breaks.

Generally, there are no minor details when working with pressure cookers.
If someone wants to repeat my success, or surpass me - remember that you will take all actions at your own peril and risk.
And the fear of the Chinese valve will be a little more. Silicone to a small extent, but still sticks to the surface of the seat (this is not aluminum), so the Chinese valve does not constantly poison, as most of us are used to, but works with hysteresis - it emits aperiodic whistles.
In manuals for Indian pressure cookers, for example, one can to some extent appreciate the Ukrainian idiomatic expression “to the gypsy land”: they suggest replacing the control of the cooking time by counting the number of these valve whistles.
I'm not as gullible as the Indians, so to combat fear, I have introduced pressure gauges on all my pressure cookers - what if ?!
The fact is that "Swarma", like all classic pressure cookers, has an elliptical lid pressed by steam pressure, so its seal is excellent, and only an emergency valve can prevent failure of the working valve. Modern pressure cookers, under the influence of insurance companies, not only have received a reduced pressure of 0.5 atm, but it is also impossible to force it - the lid modern pressure cookers raises, and forced pressure is released through the arising fistulas.
So decide for yourself - "to have or not to have" - as it is sung in the Soviet New Year's song. Swarma and China are like Yin and Yang: you cannot decide which is better and which is worse - black or white.
For 6 years of operation of "Svarma" after repair, I have not found an equivalent alternative to the Soviet valve, so another "thank you" from me to the great Chinese people!
Outcome: the Chinese valve discovered an amazing resource, and reliably took over from the Soviet one.
Bon Appetit!

A pressure cooker appeared in the kitchen of housewives all over the world for a long time, but despite the obvious conveniences, many do not have one, and some simply do not know how to use a pressure cooker. It will significantly reduce the time spent on cooking many products, can turn even the toughest meat into a tender juicy dish, cook jellied meat in just an hour and cook frozen vegetables directly from the freezer. In the pressure cooker, you can cook soups, mains and even desserts. It makes great meat, fish, poultry and vegetables. To understand how to use a pressure cooker, read this article.

Principle of operation

Modern pressure cookers come in two types - a special saucepan that cooks a dish on a regular stove, and an electric freestanding appliance. They both work by increasing the pressure under the lid of the pot, which allows for faster food preparation. Therefore, the most important part of a pressure cooker is the airtight lid with a special valve that first builds up pressure and then releases steam from the pot.

At the beginning of the 17th century, a scientist from France D. Papen noticed that the cooking time for food depends on atmospheric pressure. The higher it is, the higher the boiling point, which means, the faster the food is cooked. So he came up with a hermetically sealed pot that builds up pressure inside. Similar simple pressure cookers were successfully used by our mothers and grandmothers. These were in almost every Soviet kitchen, so all housewives knew how to use a pressure cooker.

An important advantage of this cooking method, in addition to speeding up, is that the pressure cooker retains all the important nutrients in the food. The secret here is all the same tightness - without contact with oxygen, food does not oxidize and does not lose its benefits. It also preserves the flavor of the food.

To cook in a pressure cooker, first place the food you need in the recipe, then close the lid. It is important to place the lid correctly here so that it fits snugly against the pan and the valve is in place. Turn the lock handle 2-2.5 turns, adjustable valve put on the desired temperature regime and put the pressure cooker on the fire. Watch it, as it is important for you to wait for the liquid to boil. When its temperature reaches 100 ° C, you will hear a hiss and see steam coming out through a special hole. Modern models of pressure cookers are also equipped with sensors that show you with light or sound that the water is boiling.

From this point on, you will begin to count down the time to prepare the dish. But first, reduce the temperature, it should be low.

When the cooking time is over, you will need to cool down the pressure cooker and release the steam. To do this, place a saucepan under the tap with cold water so that its bottom is also in the water. Make sure that no water enters the valve. Place it in the decompression position. Usually there are 2 such positions - slow and fast steam release. Start slow. Until you release steam, the food will be under pressure and continue to cook. In addition, until the steam is released, there is pressure inside the pot, meaning you cannot open the lid.

When it falls, and you can tell by the cooled sides of the pressure cooker and the lower position of the pressure indicator, you can open the pressure cooker. Now you know how to use a pressure cooker, the instructions for it will tell you additional modern and convenient notification, timer, decompression functions.

We lay the products

To properly prepare a dish, you need to know not only how to use a pressure cooker, but also how to cook in it. different products... If you need to pre-fry something, then do it directly in the pressure cooker with the lid open. Then place all the other ingredients in the dish. If the recipe requires you to add the ingredients gradually at regular intervals, you will need to cool the pressure cooker under water and blow off the steam each time to open the lid.

Approximate cooking times for some food in a pressure cooker:

Frozen vegetables
Beans, cabbage, carrot slices, frozen fish, potato wedges	3-4 minutes
Red beans, cauliflower, small young potatoes, liver, fresh fish
Eggplant, turnip, onion, capsicum, large young potatoes, pre-fried beef
Whole young beets, jacket potatoes, frozen poultry, pre-fried lamb and pork, rice	10-15 minutes
Corn cobs, pre-fried chicken	15-20 minutes
Medium chicken, duck	20-30 minutes

Thanks to the pressure and the lack of oxygen, the taste of food cooked in a pressure cooker is much more intense than in a saucepan. Therefore, you need to put in half the amount of aromas and spices in the pressure cooker than with the usual cooking method.

What shouldn't be done?

Be aware of the presence of liquid - the pressure cooker will not work without it. Also, you cannot put it on an empty stove. The minimum amount of liquid is 2 glasses. At the same time, do not fill it more than 2/3 of the volume of the pan. It is not recommended to cook in a pressure cooker those products that produce copious foam - oatmeal and other grains, milk. If you are cooking meat and you need to skim off the foam, then boil it first with the lid open. Otherwise, the foam will clog the valve.

You cannot use the pressure cooker for other purposes - store and heat food in it, put it in the oven or microwave.

Care rules

To clean the pressure cooker, take it apart - wash the pan with dishwashing liquid or put it in the dishwasher. It is better to wash the gasket, valves and other parts separately by hand. Special attention remove the cap - rinse it carefully under the tap, but do not completely immerse it in water, this can ruin the operation of the valves.

Also, before washing the lid in dishwasher, check in the instructions if this can be done. If so, remove all parts from the cover, they need to be washed by hand.

How to use the multicooker pressure cooker?

Multicooker today does not surprise anyone, perhaps this device is in every kitchen. But a multicooker with a pressure cooker function is familiar to few. This is a great opportunity to combine two such handy features into one.

The device repeats the design of a conventional pressure cooker - the multicooker has the same valve that creates pressure inside for faster cooking. So you don't have to learn if you already know how to use a pressure cooker. "Redmond", "Scarlet", "Moulinex" - these are the brands that produce the best, reliable and inexpensive pressure cookers-multicooker. If you decide to acquire such an assistant, feel free to buy devices under these brands.

The pressure cooker is an ingenious invention in the world of cooking. They are incredibly fast! Pressure cookers are great for fast food food. At the same time, all vitamins and minerals that are lost during the cooking process by other methods are preserved. To get started using your pressure cooker, especially if you are using it for the first time, it is important to learn how to handle it and learn the basics. Knowing the basic principle of a pressure cooker can help you determine if it is operating normally or in an unstable state.

Steps

Part 1

Pressure cooker basics

What a pressure cooker does. When the cooker is on, steam is generated by heating, which cooks food faster due to the higher boiling point. There are two types of pressure cookers. The first type represents an older model of pressure cooker with a pressure valve on the lid exhaust tube. The second type introduces new models with a spring-loaded valve and a closed system.

Make sure that the body of your pressure cooker is free of chips or cracks before use. Also, it is necessary to clean the food debris from the pressure cooker. In the event that there are cracks in the body of the pressure cooker, they can leak steam, which can cause burns.

How to fill a pressure cooker correctly. Before using your pressure cooker, make sure there is liquid in it. Most recipes use water. The liquid level in the pressure cooker should not exceed ⅔ of the total volume, as some space is required for steam to form.

Pressure cooker with pressure valve: A pressure cooker with a pressure valve must have at least one glass of water. This amount of water is usually sufficient to cook for 20 minutes.
Spring Valve Pressure Cooker: Minimum amount of liquid in the pressure cooker of this type is half a glass.

Basket and stand. The pressure cookers come with a basket for vegetables, seafood and fruits, which are suitable for use in a pressure cooker. A stand is attached under the basket. The stand is located at the bottom of the pressure cooker. A basket is installed on it.

Part 2
Preparing food for cooking in a pressure cooker
1. Prepare food for cooking in the pressure cooker. A cooking guide for various products may be supplied with the pressure cooker in the box.
  - Cooking meat and poultry: Before cooking in the pressure cooker, you can season the meat with various spices. Roast the meat first for more flavor. For this, you can use a little oil, such as canola oil. Fry the meat in a pressure cooker with average temperature... Do not close the lid of the pressure cooker while cooking. Place the meat in a pressure cooker and brown it lightly. You can also fry the meat in a skillet before cooking it in the pressure cooker.
  - Cooking seafood: Rinse seafood. Place the seafood in the rack of the pressure cooker basket and add at least 3/4 cup of liquid (175 ml). When cooking fish, apply a little vegetable oil to the basket of the pressure cooker to prevent the fish from sticking to the basket.
  - Cooking beans and peas: Soak beans (peas) in water for 4-6 hours. Do not add salt to the water. Drain and place the beans (peas) in the pressure cooker. Add one to two tablespoons (15-30 ml) of vegetable oil to the water if you are using an older pressure cooker with a pressure valve.
  - Cooking rice and cereals: Soak wheat grains or pearl barley in slightly warm water for four hours. Rice and oatmeal do not need to be soaked.
  - Cooking vegetables (fresh and frozen): Defrost frozen vegetables. Rinse fresh vegetables... Place vegetables in the pressure cooker basket. Most vegetables can be cooked with half a cup (125 ml) of water in a pressure cooker, and the cooking time for vegetables is about five minutes. If the required cooking time is 5 to 10 minutes, you should take 1 glass of water (250 ml). If the required cooking time is 10-20 minutes, you need to take 2 glasses of water (500 ml).
  - Cooking fruit: All fruits must be washed before cooking in the pressure cooker. Place the fruit in the pressure cooker basket. For fresh fruit, use half a glass of water (125 ml). For dried fruit, you need 1 cup (250 ml) water.
2. Define required amount water. Check the instructions that came with your pressure cooker to determine how much water you need for certain foods. Also, instructions can be found on the Internet. A certain amount of food requires a certain amount of water.
Part 3
Using a pressure cooker
1. Decrease the heat so that the water in the pressure cooker continues to boil, but the pressure cooker does not make a whistling sound when steam is released. After that, you can start the countdown for the preparation of the product you have selected. The idea is to maintain pressure throughout the entire cooking time. If the heat is not reduced, the pressure will continue to rise and the safety valve will open (a whistling sound). This will release steam and the pressure will stop rising. The safety valve is designed to prevent the pressure cooker from bursting. If the safety valve opens, it does not mean the end of the cooking time.

In Soviet times, almost every home had a pressure cooker. This is a simple device that allows you to weld the right products much (!) faster than just in a saucepan. At that time, people believed that it was very convenient, practical, and saves time and effort. A pot-bellied device with a spinning thing, puffing in the kitchens, blowing streams of steam, day after day.

I see an extremely strange and incomprehensible picture now.

This item has almost completely disappeared from everyday life. Those who created the economy 25 years ago never had this item. Moreover! And those who have cooked in pressure cookers all their lives suddenly stopped using it. And people under the age of 30 do not often know what it is at all! According to my feelings, the pressure cooker went out of use about 25 years ago. No, of course, now it is full on sale different models, multicooker, for every taste and color and wallet. But people can't see them at home. Something is not heard the usual hiss of steam ...

Nowadays, few people remember the appearance of the most massive Soviet pressure cooker of the 70s and early 80s.

I also had one at home. Looking at this photo, I seem to feel its corrugated surface, and my hand still remembers this graceful movement, which had to open and close the lid - with a twist, since the hole and lid are elliptical.

In the mid-80s, we had a more modern one. It seemed to me then the height of technical thought. As soon as it went on sale, everyone started buying them, which speaks of the popularity of the pressure cooker at the time.

Years have passed. The pace of life has increased, food prices have risen significantly, gas and electricity prices have risen even more and continue to rise in price. It would seem that this is the time when the pressure cooker will help more than in Soviet times! After all, instead of 2 hours on the fire, half an hour is enough to cook the necessary products! We save time, money, energy. But no. The opposite happened.

By the way, talking with people about this phenomenon, I suddenly found out that people are very vague about the principle of the pressure cooker. Even people with technical education! The common answer is "food cooks faster under pressure." In this regard, I think it will be interesting to understand how this happens. Hope it will be interesting.

So, in ancient times, I don't know when, people realized that if food, then first of all - the meat of slaughtered animals, heated, then it is better eaten and absorbed. And after processing it is stored longer.

In the first way heat treatment was frying on fire. However, it had a drawback - many less dense foods, especially vegetables, burned or completely burned. Also, it was not possible to evenly warm the product, this required a lot of tweaks.
I don’t know how and when (this is also interesting, I have to read it separately somewhere), it occurred to people to heat food in water and process it much longer. In this case, heating occurs evenly and over the entire surface, the product warms up faster and more evenly. This is what we call cooking.
In fact, I will now say a somewhat paradoxical thing - water is not very suitable for thermal processing of food! Its plus is availability. I went into the river and typed. Well, one more thing - the water in which something is cooked can be drunk, taking off some of the substances that got into it during cooking. Simply put. bouillon. And then the minuses begin. The heat capacity of water is extremely high and it takes a lot of energy to heat it up. At 100 degrees, the water begins to boil, and excess energy is spent on vaporization, which goes to this water after it has already warmed up to 100 degrees. Thus, it turns out that you need to spend a lot of time to heat the water, but at the same time, no matter how hard we try, no matter what kind of fire we make, we cannot heat our products that we cook to more than 100 degrees. This takes a very long time to cook.

Against this background, it looks very good, say, vegetable oil- its boiling point is twice as high, about 200 degrees, and its heat capacity is low, and it is much easier to heat it. We can quickly reach the temperature of our products 200 degrees, and, just like with water, evenly heat the product.At one time, I was extremely surprised when I saw that cooking a piece of chicken in deep fat, that is, fully immersed in heated oil, takes less than a minute!

But oil cannot be scooped out of water as easily as water. And you can't cook soup on it. And vegetables rich in their own juices (read, water) generally do not behave very well in oil.

And so, in the 16th century, a pharmacist came simple idea- heat water in a confined space! The pressure inside increases when heated, and makes it difficult for vaporization. Thus, water does not boil at either 100 degrees or 200 degrees! In other words, we can heat ordinary water up to as much high temperature! All you need is a durable and sealed enclosure.

It was a type of pressure cooker. People quickly realized that such an opportunity means a simple fact - you can heat food to a high temperature and at the same time evenly, in ordinary water, which means cooking them much faster. Massively the pressure cooker went to the people only in late XIX century, and in the twentieth century it became a common attribute of the kitchen.

American pressure cooker of the 40s of the XX century.

Of course, we do not need to heat our products to 500 degrees and above, then they will simply burn out, and the pressure in this case will be so great that the body must be cast, perhaps, from cast iron.

Therefore, pressure cookers have a pressure relief valve - some of the steam still comes out of there. This gives that very slight hiss during cooking. But this discharge is metered, and the valve is set in such a way that the pressure inside the pressure cooker is still much higher than atmospheric pressure, and the water heats up above 100 degrees, which means that the food is cooked much faster.
Another useful side effect is that vitamins are better preserved, since the amount of air inside is limited and their oxidation is not so intense.
In later models, a safety valve also appeared, which emergency relieves pressure when a certain limit is reached. V last years pressure cookers acquired a pressure gauge, a thermometer, a steaming device, and much more. There are a lot of models with autonomous heating that do not even need to be put on the stove.

And now, when energy resources are becoming more expensive, and time is getting more expensive even faster, in our age of speeds and fast processes, pressure cookers for some reason are gone, and only people who are especially confused in the preparation of certain products began to buy them.
Why? I can't figure it out ...

Pressure cookers: a legacy of the Soviet past or an ultra-modern kitchen appliance?

Most modern housewives dream or already have a multicooker in their kitchen, which is designed to greatly simplify the cooking process for modern woman... However, a certain logical contradiction is hidden here: how does a device, in which cooking takes much longer than in a standard saucepan, help to deal with the lack of time? Maybe the busy hobbyist should turn their attention to the pressure cooker - a device that uses steam and pressure to dramatically reduce kitchen time?

Modern housewives will frown in response and notice that pressure cookers are a meaningless legacy of the distant Soviet past, in addition, everyone has heard the story that a friend of acquaintances had this terrible hissing saucepan exploded. If all this is true, then why then the leading manufacturers of kitchen utensils, such as WMF, Fissler, Silit, produce entire lines of pressure cookers and regularly improve and update the lineup? Tefal went even further and involved the famous TV cook Jamie Oliver in the development of the next model.

Do you still think that a pressure cooker is something incomprehensible and very dangerous?

The principle of operation of the pressure cooker is based on the physical law known to many since school: the boiling point of water depends on atmospheric pressure. In textbooks, the example is often given that on the top of Mount Everest, water boils at 69 ° C, which is not enough to cook meat for hungry tourists. In a pressure cooker, the opposite is true: thanks to the hermetically sealed lid, a pressure of 103 kPa is reached inside and an overheated liquid with a temperature of 121 ° C is obtained. High speed heating the products inside this device is associated with the formation of saturated (wet) steam, like that which is escaping from the spout of a boiling kettle.

The first models of pressure cookers did not differ in technical perfection, but nevertheless they regularly performed their function without numerous human casualties.

The pressure cooker was invented by the French physicist Denis Papin in 1679; the scientist called his invention a steam autoclave and presented it at a meeting of the Royal Society of London. Serial production of these devices was established only two centuries later in Stuttgart by Georg Gutbrod. The first pressure cooker for home use was developed in the USA by Alfred Wischler in 1838 and was called the "Flexible Airtight Speed Pan".

Homemade pressure cookers usually consist of three parts: the actual metal saucepan, the lid, and a rubber or silicone gasket to ensure the structure is airtight. There are two handles on the pan, and one of them is usually long, this is due to the fact that with a standard volume of 4.5-7 liters, the weight of the entire device with a lid, water and food turns out to be quite large.

Aluminum, familiar to us from our grandmother's "kitchen assistant", and stainless steel are used as materials for pots and lids. An aluminum pressure cooker will be cheaper and lighter than a steel one, but it is not recommended to cook sour and salty foods in it, and in addition, you cannot wash such a pan in a dishwasher. Steel models are manufactured with a heavy three-layer or copper-clad bottom to improve heat uniformity as the steel itself has a relatively low thermal conductivity. Models with enamel pan, which differ from their steel counterparts in greater mass, but can be matched to the color of the rest of the kitchen utensils.

Silit pressure cookers in assortment

The lid contains a handle with a locking mechanism in the form of a button or a slider, an opening for steam outlet (working valve) with a pressure regulator that opens when a certain pressure value is exceeded, an emergency valve that is triggered when the working valve does not cope with the load, as well as a pressure indicator - a pin, the lifting height of which indicates the level of pressure inside. In a number of modern models, there is a mechanical pressure level switch on the lid: 1 (low) - for vegetables, fruits, fish, mushrooms, rice; 2 (high) - for meat, jacket potatoes, beans, peas.

The rubber or silicone gasket is designed to completely seal the internal volume of the pressure cooker: in a working model, steam should only come out of the operating valve. The service life of the high temperature and pressure pad is limited, so it is advisable to purchase a replacement pad at the same time you purchase a pressure cooker.

On consumables it is better not to save on the pressure cooker

The lid of the pressure cooker must be securely fastened to the pan, for this there are special clips around the perimeter - to close the lid, it rotates about 30 ° relative to the pan. Some modern models additionally present locking mechanism, activated by pressure, which prevents an inattentive housewife from opening a working pressure cooker.

Most manufacturers offer a range of accessories to enhance functionality pressure cookers: a metal basket with holes for steaming, a special support for this basket, as well as metal dividers that allow you to steam several dishes at the same time. For an additional price, you can also purchase a timer and cleaning agents to keep your pressure cooker in good condition. perfect condition... Anticipating your irony, we hasten to note that a timer is necessary when cooking food under high pressure, although, of course, it is not at all necessary to purchase it from a pressure cooker manufacturer. Indeed, unlike a conventional saucepan in a pressure cooker, you will not be able to check the degree of readiness of food during its preparation, and an extra one or two minutes will turn your al dente vegetables into a boiled porridge. So, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower will be ready in 3 minutes, potatoes, kohlrabi, apple jam - for 4, pork fillets - for 8, beef and lamb fillets, and cabbage rolls - for 10, deer leg - for 20.

The timer integrated in the pressure cooker will help control the cooking time, which is relevant for dependent and gas hobs

Three generations of pressure cookers can be conventionally distinguished:

the first generation, well known to us from childhood. When cooking, steam is noisily escaping from the valve, which works like a piston in steam engine, and the loud whistle with which the pressure cooker gets rid of the excess pressure can actually scare untrained cooks;
the second generation, which, in fact, is offered by such manufacturers as Tefal, WMF, Fissler. In these pressure cookers spring valve in most cases it is hidden, in some models the steam is not released at all during cooking; instead, a signal indicator rises above the lid, showing the level of pressure inside. Excess steam in such devices will only be discharged outside if the heating power supplied to the pressure cooker is too high;
the third generation includes electric pressure cookers, in which operating pressure regulated by the supplied electric power. These devices, like the second generation pressure cookers, have a spring-loaded valve and have two modes of operation.

The process of preparing food in a pressure cooker has a number of peculiarities. The most important thing is the amount of water you put into the pot. It should not exceed the volume indicated in the instructions and often marked on the inner wall - usually no more than 2/3 of the total volume of the pan. In most cases, especially when cooking vegetables, there should be very little liquid - it's okay if it does not completely cover the roots.

The water in the pressure cooker can be hot or cold, if required by the recipe. The cooking time, which is indicated by the manufacturer in the instructions and set by you on the timer, is counted from the moment when the indicator on the lid has risen completely in accordance with the preset mode. After that, the heat under the pressure cooker should be reduced so that the emergency valve does not work.

Modern pressure cooker from WMF

After cooking, you need to get rid of high pressure, for which there are three ways.

Most quick method consists in placing the pressure cooker under the stream cold water, which, however, must not come into contact with the valve. This approach is optimal for short cooking times, for example, for vegetables - being in a cooling pressure cooker, they can be overcooked. It takes 30 seconds for complete cooling and subsequent safe opening of the lid.
Manual or normal pressure reduction occurs when the valve is moved or raised. This method is often used when it is necessary to add components with a shorter cooking time during the cooking process, such as vegetables in a meat stew. Unlike the first method, this cooling does not reduce the temperature of the pressure cooker itself and of the food in it. It takes about two minutes to release the pressure and open the lid, but open the valve carefully so as not to burn yourself with the hot steam.
The natural pressure drop, at which the pressure cooker is simply removed from the stove, takes about 15 minutes. It must be remembered that with this method, the food continues to cook, since the water temperature inside is quite high, which is not bad for meat, but not suitable for vegetables. Free cooling is recommended when cooking food that produces a lot of foam during cooking: rice and other cereals, pasta, puddings.

Of course, when considering pressure cookers, one cannot ignore the story about the explosions of these kitchen helpers. However, these unpleasant incidents only happened with older models in which food could block the working steam outlet valve. V modern devices in such a situation, as well as when the water is completely boiled away, additional safety mechanisms (two or three additional valves) are triggered to relieve excess pressure.

Despite the resolved explosiveness problem, pressure cookers still have a number of disadvantages. The first is the price, a standard device will cost you more than a saucepan of the same size; secondly, the lid is not recommended to be washed in the dishwasher; thirdly, the rubber gasket requires a rather careful attitude, which does not exclude the need for its periodic replacement.

American pressure cooker All American is designed for preparation of "blanks" - stew, vegetables, fruits - directly in glass jars

However, all these disadvantages are more than compensated for by advantages, the main of which is a threefold reduction in the cooking time, which will not only free cooks for other more pleasant things, but also save gas (or electricity), which is important with regularly increasing tariffs. In addition, in food that was cooked at a temperature of 121 ° C, all microorganisms are almost completely destroyed. The pressure cooker can be used as a sterilizer for all kinds of jars and baby bottles.

Thus, the pressure cooker is undoubtedly a useful gadget in your kitchen, especially if you are a busy business woman with big family... Prices for this kitchen assistant start at $ 100. You can, of course, buy a cheaper Chinese model, but it is worth remembering that a pressure cooker is still a source of increased danger, so it is better to buy goods from a well-known manufacturer.