HOW PRESSURE COOKING WORKS

Family sagas of split pea soup on the ceiling are just that: stories from the past. The newly designed cookers are 100% safe!

Here’s how the pressure cooker works: The lid of a pressure cooker has a gasket embedded around the inside rim. This gasket (also called sealing ring) creates a tight seal and once the lid is locked in place, a vacuum is created inside the cooker as steam pressure builds.  In the sealed pot, water boils at 242 degrees F instead of the standard 212F.  At this higher-than-normal boiling point, the fibers in food break down in record time, turning inexpensive cuts of meat into meltingly tender forkfuls in a matter of minutes.  The “pc” is also terrific for cooking dried beans (no pre-soaking necessary, whole grains (so good for you), and dense vegetables like potatoes and beets in 1/3 or less the standard cooking time.

Because of the dramatically shortened cooking time, the cooker is energy efficient, leaving a much smaller carbon footprint!

If you forget to turn down the heat once high pressure is reached, numerous back-up mechanisms release excess pressure.  No worries.  Happy cooking!

For a U-Tube video of me explaining the above, see About Lorna Sass on this blog.

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