Usually pressure cookers are large and used for canning. A smaller pressure cooker is available for everyday use and perfect for making venison or tough cuts of meat, fork tender.
Instructions
1. Pressure cookers can be very dangerous. If you have a new one, follow the manufactures directions to the letter! If you don't have other written instructions use these, but realize different cookers ... are different.
2. Always make sure that your equipment is in good condition. The lid should have a rubber seal around the lip and it should be flexible and clean. If it's stretched out of shape or dry and cracked replace it with a new one.
3. The pressure valve on the lid should be loose and move up and down freely. Make sure no food has gotten dried in it so that it won't move. It is attached, so normally doesn't cause a problem.
4. Your jiggler should be the same one that came with cooker. The jiggler is the weight that goes on top of the lids steam vent. The wrong weight jiggler would probably just not let the steam build up inside the pan, but it could blow off and hurt someone.
5. The pressure cooker relies on steam to work so always use at least one cup of liquid and more for a larger cooker. The steam vent is on the top of the lid and needs to be clear. I blow through mine every time I use it just to make sure nothing is stuck in it.
6. Place the food to be cooked in the cooker and use the rack that fits in the bottom. This isn't absolutely necessary but it keeps anything from sticking or getting scorched. The lid (that you've already check out) is placed on the pot. The lid and the pot each have half of the handle and grooves that need to be meshed. The lid will be fitted onto the pot's grooves with the handles about five inches apart and then squeezed together until they match up. This will lock the cooker.
7. Place the cooker on your stove's burner and turn it to a medium high heat. Put the jiggler on the steam vent. When the steam in the cooker is built up, the valve will pop up and stay in place. NEVER take the jiggler off the pressure cooker while the valve is up. It can be easily knocked off, so don't try to move the cooker at all. Adjust your burner so the jigglier has a nice rocking motion to it. If it is hissing and looks like it's about to blow up - it might. Turn down the heat. Carefully, slid it off the burner in an emergency.
8. Usually, a recipe will call for the cooker to cool down on it's own. After you've cook for the allotted time with the jigglier, turn off the burner and leave it there to finish cooking.
If the recipe calls for a fast cooling so you can other ingredients (like in the venison stew recipe - see my other article) turn off the heat and wait for the jigglier to stop moving. Carefully carry the pressure cooker with the jiggler to the sink and let cool water run over the whole thing. When the PRESSURE VALVE GOES DOWN, you can remove the jiggler and the lid. It will still be very hot. Add the other ingredients and replace the lid. Put it back on the burner with a medium high heat. The valve will pop up again and the jiggler will start to jiggle. Again, don't let the jiggler get out of control.
Tags: pressure cooker, steam vent, high heat, jiggler will, medium high
