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By Instant Pot Staff, June 28, 2009

When cooking vegetable, fresh or frozen, it’s recommended to use steaming to preserve vitamins and minerals to the maximum. Steaming also retains the nature look of the vegetable, adding aesthetic value to your dish.

When steaming vegetable, you need at least one cup of water (250ml), an ovenproof or steel bowl on a trivet. Due to short pressure keeping period, leaving the cooker naturally cooling down without using the steam release will add some extra cooking time to the food.

Please note that the cooking time is pressure keeping time on Instant Pot or other electric pressure cookers operating at the preset pressure level. Cooking times are approximate. Please use them as a guideline only.

The cooking time is for small or medium amount of food.  For large amount, please add more water and increase the time by 20~40%.

Fresh or Frozen Vegetable Pressure Cooking Timetable

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 16, 2009

Instant Pot takes advantage of pressure cooking, which cooks flavorful meal, softens the food and retains vitamins/minerals.  Thanks to its micro-processor controlled cooking cycles, meals are made in a consistent fashion.

Trapping Flavor in Food

Instant Pot cooks meals in a fully sealed environment. Nutrients and aroma stay in the ingredients instead of being dispersing around the home.  The original juice of fish,  meat (e.g. chicken), and  fruits remains within the food.

Retaining Vitamins and Minerals

When steaming with Instant Pot, you don’t need to put large amount of water. Enough water to keep the pressure cooker filled with steam is sufficient. Because of this, vitamins and minerals are not leached or dissolved away by water. Since steam surrounds the food, foods are not oxidized by air exposure at heat, so asparagus, broccoli, and so on retain their bright green colors and phytochemicals.

Tender & Tasty Meal

Meat and bones can be cooked really tender in Instant Pot.  After cooking in Instant Pot, the bones pork ribs are completed separated from the meat and become chewable, allowing calcium and other minerals to be easily absorbed.

Under pressure cooking, whole grain and bean based meals are also softer texture and taste better than cooked in other methods.

Consistent Results

Another important features is that Instant Pot cooks meals with remarkable consistence. During pressure cooking, heat is very evenly, deeply, and quickly distributed. The Instant Pot’s intelligent programming ensures cooking being consistent regardless the volume of water and the amount of food. This is an unmatched advantage with programmable electric pressure cookers.

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 6, 2009

An electric pressure cooker consists of three parts, the lid, inner pot and housing. See the diagram to the right. The most important things to know about electric pressure cookers  are the safety valves and smart control box.

How electric pressure cooker works

The Inner Pot

The inner pot is a removable cooking pot. It is generally made from aluminum or stainless steel. The aluminum inner pots may be stamped and buffed or anodized, but this metal is unsuitable for the dishwasher. Higher quality stainless steel inner pot are made with sturdy, three-ply, or copper-clad bottom for uniformed heating.

The size of the inner pot determines the size of the housing, and to some degree the price of the cooker. The inner pot capacity typically ranges from 3 liter (3 quart) to 6 liter (6.3 qt).  Over 6L, it becomes difficult to maintain and the cooker becomes prohibitively expensive to some consumers.

The Lid Lock

The lid has a gasket or sealing ring. When the lid is played on the cooker in the sealed position, the lid and the inner pot form an air-tight chamber. The pressure inside this chamber increases when heat is applied to the inner pot. There would be an unsafe operating condition if the lid is not in the locked position when significant amount of pressure is generated inside the chamber. Some electric cookers have the pin lock mechanism to prevent the lid from being accidentally opened while there is significant amount of pressure inside. The pin is essentially a float valve. If there is enough pressure inside the inner pot, the float valve is pushed up by the pressure. Once pushed up, the pin of the float vale serves as latch lock and prevents the lid from the turning movement, even under force.

Instant Pot also extends such safety assurance with a safety power switch. If the lid is not in the desired fully close position, the electronic control system of Instant Pot can detect the situation and will not switch on the power for heating.

Safety Valves

Similar to the conventional pressure cooker, the pin of the float valve can be self-destroyed by excessive temperature or pressure. The float valve without the pin becomes a pressure escape hole, and the pressure inside the chamber is released this hole. Although in such a case the float valve is permanently damaged and possible a lid replacement may be required, this is an effective last line of defense from the safety perspective. The modern electric pressure cookers also use other safety assurance measures before this last line defense kicks in. Instant Pot employs the patented innovative push-down pressure release mechanism to release excessive pressure, even in the unlikely case where the pin of the float valve cannot destroyed. Instant Pot provides a multi-level in-depth defense system to offer unprecedented safety assurance to the consumers.

Normally, the only way the pressure can escape is through a pressure release regulator valve on the lid. The pressure release valve has anti-block shield insider the lid. The pressure release regulator valve is made not to release the pressure under normal operating pressure range when in the seal position. If the pressure increases beyond the safe operating range, the pressure release regular valve will be pushed up, similar to that on the conventional pressure cooker, to release excessive pressure built up inside the chamber. The difference from the conventional pressure cooker is that the pressure release valve only kicks in to release excessive pressure due to possible failure of electronic based sensing circuitry.

The Housing: Sensors, Heating Element & Control Box

The housing unit contains a heating element, pressure and temperature sensors and a control box. The control box is the heart of the intelligence of the electric pressure cooker. It monitors the temperature and pressure of inner pot with the sensors. It is equipped with a microprocessor to control the timing, heating and complex cooking cycles. This is how a positive feed-back system is formed to achieve precise cooking conditions. If an unsafe operating condition is detected, it will sound audible alarm or cut off the power supply to the heating element.

The control panel, being the user interface of the control box, allows one-key operation to activate pre-programmed cooking cycle for various dishes. For instance, corns, peas, cauliflower and broccoli can be steamed in 1 minute. Frozen corns, peas, cauliflower and broccoli will been done in 2 minutes. Dry beans and bones will take only 30~40 minutes.

Intelligent Pressure Cooking

Electric pressure cookers normally operates at a pressure range of 70-80 kPa (kilopascal) or 10.15~11.6 psi (pound-force per square inch). This translates to the temperature of 115°C~118°C or 239°F~244°F, regardless of the altitudes. Initially pressure may reach 105kPa/15.2 psi, due to the heat dissipation delay from the heating element. This is comparable to stove-top pressure cooker reaching 15 psi and then heat being turned down.

By switching on and off the heating element and varying the heat intensity at different temperature and pressure, the best cooking result can be achieved in an intelligent way. The following diagram shows the pressure curves of Instant Pot.

Some electric pressure cooker, such as the Instant Pot, has intelligent cooking capabilities to achieve the best result, such as,

• automatically altering the cooking time and pressure based on the chosen food type , i.e. rice, soup, meat, vegetable, etc.
• adjusting cooking cycle based on the amount of food in the cooker, by measuring pre-heating duration.

Read about the three generation of electric pressure cooker.

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 6, 2009

When it comes to steaming, electric pressure cooker and steamer work in the same way. Generally, electric pressure cookers can replace electric steamers in all steaming cooking for dishes such as vegetable, fresh pasta, fish, etc.

Electric pressure cooker works better for two reasons.

Faster and Deeper

Under high pressure, steam penetrates the food in very evenly, deeply, and quickly manner. This is why electric pressure cooker is faster than ordinary steamer. Electric pressure cookers are especially good for tough pieces food, such as big potato or yum, fish or meat.

Clean and Green

Electric pressure cooker such as Instant Pot has a fully sealed cooking environment. No steam escapes the cooker. You only need a small amount of water (e.g. a cup of water) to steam vegetable (corns, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.) fresh or frozen. And it takes just a minute or two. This makes electric pressure cooker more energy efficiency leaving your kitchen cooler and free from excessive humidity.

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 5, 2009

Pressure cooking has many advantages, among which saving time & energy, preserving nutrients and eliminating harmful micro-organisms from food are most significant.

Saving Time & Energy

Foods are cooked much faster by pressure cooking than by other methods. Typically electric pressure cooker can reduce cooking time by up to 70% comparing with other methods.

With much less water used in cooking and a fully insulated external pot, much less energy is required, saving up to 70% of energy comparing with boiling, steaming, oven cooking or slow cooking. Electric pressure cookers are the second most energy efficient cooking appliance after microwaves.

Preserving Nutrients & Cook Tasty Food

With pressure cooking, heat is very evenly, deeply, and quickly distributed. It is not necessary to immerse food in water: enough water to keep the pressure cooker filled with steam is sufficient. Because of this, vitamins and minerals are not leached or dissolved away by water. Since steam surrounds the food, foods are not oxidized by air exposure at heat, so asparagus, broccoli, and so on retain their bright green colors and phytochemical. The cooked food keeps its original flavor.

Electric pressure cookers, such as Instant Pot, has a unique fully sealed cooking mechanism. No steam and smells spread throughout the kitchen and your home. This makes it an ideal clean and convenient cooking appliance.

Eliminating Harmful Micro-Organisms in Food

With pressure cookers, food is cooked at a temperature above the boiling point of water, killing almost all harmful living micro-organisms such as bacteria and viruses. Pressure cooker have been used as an effective sterilizer, for jam pots and glass baby bottles for example, or for treating water.

Electron micrograph picture of Aspergillus fumigatus, courtesy of National Institutes of Health, http://www.niaid.nih.gov/

Rice, wheat, corn and beans may carry fungal poisons called aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are naturally occurring mycotoxins produced by many species of Aspergillus fungi, due to improper storage, such as in humid conditions. Aflatoxins are a potent trigger of liver cancer and may play a role in a host of other cancers as well.

Just heating a food to the boiling point does not destroy aflatoxins. Recent study by Korean researchers showed that pressure cooking was capable of reducing aflatoxin concentrations to safe levels.

Another example is raw kidney beans, often used in making delicious Mexican Chili. Kidney beans contain a toxin, phytohaemagglutinin, which is only destroyed by boiling at high temperature  for at least ten minutes.

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