Instant Pot!

[GoingNuts]

Chicken is a smash hit.  Ridiculously tender- it split in half when I took it out, which made it very easy to carve. Great flavor, and the broth!   Very easy clean up as well. 

If you want crisper skin, you could put it under the broiler for a few minutes.  We didn't think it was necessary.

[BensMom]

I think I'm going to try ribs tomorrow.

[GoingNuts]

Looking forward to your review.   

[becca]

Since we do not eat the skin, for the most part, we don't mind that it's not crisp.  But, for a dinner party or guests, I'd grill or roast, for presentation.  I saved the broth from the IP.  I've got  2 full cups in the fridge, with a 1/4 fat cap I'll just pull off.  I'll cook some bones I've got in the freezer and make soup for dinner tomorrow.  This is after a second dinner tonight for 3 of us...Ds chose leftover pizza.

[BensMom]

The ribs were good! This definitely goes in the plus column for the Instant Pot. I've made ribs once or maybe twice in the past 20 years. Now I can make them and know they'll be good. Not that I'll make them often, but it'll be an option.

I put 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar in the pot. Rubbed the ribs with a dry rub of brown sugar, paprika, salt and pepper, put the little trivet thing in the pot and the ribs on top of that (I cut the rack of ribs in half, but you probably don't have to--just curl it around the pot) and cooked for 25 minutes, did 10 min NPR and then moved the ribs to a foil covered baking sheet and slathered in bbq sauce and stuck them in the over for a little while. I had the oven on 450 from roasting potatoes, so I put them in on that, but then ended up broiling them for a few minutes.

My pot is only 5 quarts, which no one seems to have. The ribs fit, but I wonder if the 6qt pots are taller. I couldn't stand the ribs straight up or they would have been right at the top of the pot, so I had them slouch a bit as then circled the edge. If anyone gets  chance, measure the inside pot of your 6 quart and let me know the height and diameter.

We might try a whole chicken next. I don't cook whole chickens. When we have them dh, deals with them. So maybe he'll make one Sunday. I have to say though, I'm not a fan of really moist chicken. I like mine dried out just a bit. I want my chicken meat firm, not mushy and there's a fine line between moist and juicy vs chicken meat that doesn't seem cooked enough to me. I'll have to find a small enough chicken to fit in the pot. If becca fit 6 lbs, I can probably fit 5. the trivet that came with my pot is pretty short.

[BensMom]

Thought this comparison sheet might be helpful for any9ne looking to buy an IP

https://instantpot.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Instant-Pot-Product-Comparison-Nov-27-2017.pdf

Just looked at this and it looks like the 6 quart pot is taller, but not wider than the 5 quart. So, not any larger to put on the counter, which is good. But taller, so hard to fit in a cabinet, but I'm not storing mine in a cabinet right now anyway.

[BensMom]

I'm planning on trying brown rice tonight, but I'm not sure it would be any easier or any faster than in my rice cooker. I think it can take about 40 minutes in the rice cooker, but I'm not sure. Could be more, could be less. From what I'm reading, to cook it in the IP, you set it for 20-25 minutes, then let it release for 10. Add another 10-15 for it to come up to pressure and it's the same or longer in the IP. Guess I'll try it just to see, but I'm not seeing this as a time saver.

[becca]

Not everything is a big time saver.  But easier that stove top cooking, because you set it and don't have watch and stir.  Doesn't splatter on stove.  I wouldn't think it improves upon a rice cooker for rice, but it can cook rice well, and it can do lots of other things.  I've never had a rice cooker, but when staying with friends in Honolulu, it sure seemed easy to use one. 

[BensMom]

Yeah, I've never cooked rice on the stove in my life. With a rice cooker (ours is really old and has literally one switch--on/off), you put rice in, cover with water, put the lid on and turn it on. When it's done, it keeps it warm. I thought it would cook faster in the IP--sometimes I forget to start the rice, which isn't so bad when it's white rice, but we're going to eat more brown rice. I need rice for a dish later in the week as well as tonight, so I might make some in the IP and some in the rice cooker and see which finishes first.

[BensMom]

I did a brown rice experiment. I cooked rice in the rice cooker and in the IP. The took almost exactly the same amount of time, lol. I set a stopwatch when I started them.

Rice cooker:
--1 1/2 scoops of rice
--water to cover about about an inch over rice
--turned it on and waited. It clicked off at about 39 minutes.

Instant pot:
--1 1/2 scoops rice
--1 1/2 scoops water
--set manual to 22 minutes
--when the rice cooker clicked off, the IP was 9 minutes into NPR, so I just released the rest of the pressure at that point (plan was to go 10 minutes)

The rice cooker rice is fluffier. The IP rice is chewier. Both are fine.

Rice cooker wins out because I store leftover rice in the fridge right in the rice cooker pot with its lid. I reheat it by adding a little water and sticking it back in the rice cooker and turning it on--takes about 5 minutes.

It was funny how close in time they were--pretty much exactly the same time. When the rice cooker clicks off, I let it sit until we're ready to eat, but even if we're ready right away, I try to let it sit a minute or two. In that time I could wait for the NPR to reach 10 minutes and release the remaining pressure.

I'm not sure if one would cook faster than the other if I made more rice, but I doubt it would make much difference.

[SilverLining]

I think part of the attraction to an IP is that it can do the work of a few different things (rice cooker, slow cooker, etc.) Definitely good for people with limited storage space.

~~~

Got an e-mail my IP is in stock. Should be here next week, but since it is for Christmas I actually won't use it for a while.

[BensMom]

Today I'm trying it out in slow-cooker mode. I hadn't actually planned to do this--I was just going to use my slow cooker. But I figured I'd give it a try. I'm making pepper steak. The recipe says to brown the beef first, which I've never done--I just throw it into the crockpot--but since the meat was partially frozen and since the IP has a saute function, I used that. So that was nice. Now we'll see how it all comes out. I often feel my crock pot, which is 6 quarts, it too big for some things. My 5-qt IP seems a better size for this.

We'll probably do a chicken this weekend, so it might be a challenge to find a small enough one. That could be a disadvantage of the smaller pot. I don't think I'd get rid of my crock pot and definitely not the rice cooker. I know you can do pot-in-pot stuff, but it really seems like there would be times when I want a meal in the IP and need rice and can't figure all that out. My crockpot is stored in the basement since I don't use it that much. Rice cooker in a cabinet, and so far, IP on the tea cart in the dining room (after I moved the ice cream maker back to the basement for the winter.)

[SilverLining]

My slow cooker is huge. And it has hot spots. So I am looking forward to trying the IP for that. I brown most meats before putting in the slow cooker.

[BensMom]

The IP worked great in slow cooker mode. Very convenient--better size for most of my stuff, saute function is nice and I like that I can see how long something has cooked or warmed. The only weird thing is that I couldn't change the temp (like from medium to high) unless I turned it off and reset the temp and time. I'll have to check the manual to see if I'm just not doing it right.

[SilverLining]

Got an e-mail my IP is in stock. Should be here next week, but since it is for Christmas I actually won't use it for a while.

Arrived today.