For me, the joy of pressure cooking is the fact that I am able to cook properly from scratch, but in a fast, convenient and sustainable way. This feels increasingly important when addressing some of the challenges of modern living we all face and cooking can be just one more thing we have to do on a difficult day when we are time-pressed, stressed and over-tired.
Most of us are worried about climate change and are trying to navigate our way through the endless debates on how to be sustainable, and food is often at the centre of these debates. We know that a diet high in ultra-processed foods is really bad for us and that we should be cooking much more than many of us do.
I believe that being a modern cook paradoxically involves winding the clock back to a time before eating ultra-processed food was the norm and cooking properly again – but with the added benefit of a much wider range of ingredients to work with and more mod cons to make us more efficient. We need to be mindful of what we cook but also how we cook it. I would struggle to do this to the extent I do without the help of a pressure cooker.
A pressure cooker helps you in the kitchen by saving you time (cutting off around 70% of the cooking time), making certain processes easier, reducing your fuel bill by a quite staggering amount, as well as being much greener as your consumption will be so much lower. It will also reduce your water consumption considerably.
In short, it is a very sustainable option in the kitchen. This is in addition to the benefits in terms of flavour and nutrition. Meat will be tender, flavours will intensify, vegetables will keep their colour and vitality as well as maintaining a higher nutritional value than their conventionally cooked counterparts. There is no compromise on flavour as the flavour will be better.
I hope you will be inspired by these ways in which you can use your pressure cooker and that the recipes will give you the confidence to use it to its full potential. I am constantly learning, considering every dish I might cook conventionally with the question, ‘Will this work in the pressure cooker?’ If you have this mindset – if you approach using your pressure cooker as not just a souped-up version of a saucepan or stockpot, but something that can also sauté, braise and even bake and roast – you will get so much more out of it.
Modern Pressure Cooking by Catherine Phipps (Quadrille, £26) Photography ©Andrew Hayes Watkins
