Posts tagged: rice congee

Chinese Eight Treasure Congee

By Instant Pot Staff, June 14, 2009

congee picture 300x263 Chinese Eight Treasure CongeeThe eight-treasure congee is a well known traditional Chinese rice soup, cooked with sticky rice and 8 different beans and nuts. This food has been through several thousand years and spreads the entire nation. The ingredients used in each place are largely identical but with minor differences. The eight-treasure rice congee with Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker is so simple to make.

What you need to do is to prepare ingredients, put them into Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker then press congee button to cook in fully automated cooking process, and switch to keep-warm after cooking.

Prepare Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time : Around 45 minutes with Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker

Ingredients: 6 servings

  • 1/4 cup sticky rice
  • 1/4 cup brown rice
  • 1/8 cup peanut
  • 1/8 cup red bean
  • 1/8 cup walnut minced
  • 1/8 cup sesame
  • 1/8 cup chestnut minced
  • 1/8 cup red date
  • 1/2 cup rock candy
  • 8 cups of water

Cooking: Put all ingredients into Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker then press the Congee button. Then that is it! Simple, fast, delicious, retaining flavor and nutrition, consistent results all the time.

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Convenience

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 16, 2009

InstantPot IP-LUX60 electric pressure cookerInstant Pot has 10 one-key operation buttons for the most common cooking tasks, including:

  • Rice,
  • Multigrain rice,
  • Congee/Porridge,
  • Sauté/Browning,
  • Soup,
  • Poultry,
  • Meat & Stew,
  • Beans & Chili,
  • Steaming,  and
  • Slow Cook

These one-button operation keys are carefully designed to achieve consistent cooking results. Of course, if you prefer to set you pressure keeping time for your own recipe, you can do so with the manual setting.

The following features are most notable to the one-button operation keys.

Intelligent Programming

These buttons are programmed intelligently based on thousands of experiments to achieve the best cooking results.

Take the “Rice” button as example. During rice cooking Instant Pot estimates the amount of rice and water by measuring the pre-heating time.  The pressure keeping duration is then varied based on this measurement. Detailed considerations are taken during every rice cooking stages of soaking, blanching, steaming and braising.  See Pete Vegas’ “Rice 101″ to learn more about the science of cooking rice.

Each function button can further be refined to vary food taste in the range of “rare”, “normal” and “well-done”.

Automatic Cooking

Instant Pot also provide convenience in fully automated cooking process, timing each cooking task and switch to keep-warm after cooking. Unlike conventional pressure cookers, you do not need to have a timer to manually monitor the cooking time.

Planning Meal with Delayed Cooking

Delayed cooking (up to 24 hours) can also be done with Instant Pot, allowing you to plan the meal ahead of time. Most importantly, you don’t have to stand around in the kitchen to watch over the cooker in operation. You are no longer tied to the kitchen to make the meal.

Needless to say, Instant Pot also reduces cooking time by up to 70%. It works wonders when you come home after work and have to get dinner on the table in a hurry.

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Electric Pressure Cooker vs. Rice Cooker

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By Instant Pot Staff, May 6, 2009

Cooking rice with an ordinary pot requires a lot attention. Temperature adjustment has to be done at the right moment to avoid spills and burning. This was why rice cookers were invented and have since become an indispensable kitchen appliance to Asian families.

Electric pressure cookers are an improved invention based on rice cooker. The key improvement is pressurized cooking. Instant Pot comes with pre-programmed buttons for cooking rice, congee and porridge. Comparing with rice cookers, electric pressuring cookers have three key advantages

  1. Eliminating possible aflatoxins Rice, if not stored properly, may carry fungal poisons called aflatoxins, a potent trigger of liver cancer. Conventional rice cooking at under 100°C (212°F) is not sufficient to kill all aflatoxins. Study had shown that pressure cooking at higher than 100°C (212°F) was capable of reducing aflatoxin concentrations to safe levels.
  2. Making healthy rice more tasty One very popular healthy rice meal uses whole grain/wild rice and beans, to increase protein, the amino acid lysine and dietary fiber. Whereas whole grain/wild rice and beans can be cooked with rice cooker, the cooked rice often tastes with a rather hard texture. Electric pressure cookers solves this problem nicely, making healthy rice softer and tender.
  3. Saving time & energy Typically an electric pressure cooker cooks a pot of rice in about half of the time, comparing with a rice cooker. Energy saving is around 25~30% range.

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