Under Pressure

Last year, I discovered that I could replicate my mom's braised short ribs almost perfectly. Each time I've cooked this dish since, it's taken me 2-3 hours of actual cooking time, not even including the prep time.

Enter the miracle of pressure cooking. My mom always makes that dish (among others) in the pressure cooker, but I never knew exactly how much time she was saving. I called my mom last week and spoke to both my mom and my sister, who have different pressure cookers, to get their opinions on how long I should cook the ribs for. My sister said 8 minutes once pressurized to the right psi; my mom said 18.

Whoa. Really? Because they weren't sure if my pressure cooker would be more like my sister's or my mom's, they advised me to cook the dish the first time for about 10 minutes.

I cooked this dish last night, and after 10 minutes, the dish was like it was after an hour in the oven. I wanted the meat to be more tender, even though the potatoes were perfect, so I locked the lid back on and gave it 7 more minutes. The dish came out like it does after 2.5 hours in the oven. Whoa.

Whoa!

Awesome. I love the pressure cooker. Even if I only use it for this one dish (which I won't), just that makes it all worth it. Woo hoo!

Next time, I am totally going to cook the meat & turnips w/ sauce for about 8 minutes then, after depressurizing, add the potatoes & carrots for the last 9 minutes under pressure again. Oh man, I can't wait.