Foods Must be Avoided to Cook in an Electric Pressure Cooker
An Instant Pot or electric pressure cooker is a great aiding tool to pace up the cooking process in meal preparations. The electric pressure cooker is your companion in the kitchen if you are always in a rush to prepare dinner or a person who always opts for shortcuts for slow-cook meals like tenderizing meats, lentils, chickpeas, and rice. It is highly praised by women as a fuss-free cooking option and it can cook pretty much anything. In the past few years, the pressure cooker has evolved to re-engineered electric pressure cookers with many sophisticated features and improved valve systems. However, everything has some shortfalls too; the same goes for electric pressure cookers. Although it designs to cook everything from perfect carnitas, tough meats, frozen beef to boiling eggs. But electric pressure cookers are not goofed for all foods as it can damage their nutritional value and quality.
Here are some food items you should never prepare in an electric pressure cooker to avoid them from destroying.
List of Foods that must not be cooked in an electric pressure cooker or instant pots
1. Fried foods
It’s an electric pressure cooker, not a pressure fryer. Crispy fried foods like such as chicken, mozzarella fried sticks, or bread coated items need a high level of temperatures to heat oil. For bringing crispness and crunchiness, and pressure cookers are not really designed for this purpose. As pressure cookers work on the mechanism of capturing the steam, keeping the food moist and tender rather making it crispy.
2. Quick and Instant Foods
In the case of instant foods such as instant oatmeal, instant rice, or instant noodles you should go for conventional pots for cooking rather than an electric pressure cooker. Because the food will come out gummy due to increased cooking time and the whole purpose of “Instant” fails here as the electric pressure cooker takes another 10-15minutes for its pressure to be reached and released.
3. Stir Fry/Sauté
In an Electric pressure cooker, you cannot sauté or stir fry the veggies as it requires a limited amount of heat and in pressure cookers, it’s not possible.
[caption id="attachment_13045" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Electric Pressure Cookers[/caption]4. Bread/Cakes
No no! You are not going to bake cakes in an electric pressure cooker. The cake/bread will be super dense which is good for bread pudding but not give you a nice crusty exterior to chew.
5. Steaks
Grilles are there for steaks, not the electric pressure cooker. Steak needs to be cooked to a specific temperature not possible in the electric pressure cooker to set that. Additionally, the steak will lose its caramelization as well as the texture and flavor.
6. Creamy Sauces
Adding a dairy/creamy sauce in pressure cooking can cause the milk or cream to curdle, separate or clump. It can also cause the pressure valve to get clogged as dairy will fluff at a high temperature causing burns in the electric pressure cookers. Add these at the time before plating.
7. Canning Foods
The electric pressure cooker doesn’t reach to temperature to kill bacteria to preserve the foods in the can. So canning should not be processed with electric pressure cookers.
[caption id="attachment_13046" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Electric Pressure Cooker[/caption]8. Corn flours/Flours/All purpose flours
You should avoid adding directly thickeners such as flours/cornflours to the recipe in the electric pressure cookers as it can cause burns or rather mix them in a slurry form.
9. Cookies
As the electric pressure cooker works on the mechanism of keeping moisture inside, your cookies are really going to be a mess as they lose their crusty exterior and chewy interior that makes them so delicious for sure. So just stick to the oven.
10. Burger Patties
Pressure cooked burger patties will not have the charred exterior or smoky flavor that we typically enjoy in grilled or Barbeque.
11. Pie
The moist interior of the Electric pressure cooker is not suitable for the flaky pies. Making pies in electric pressure is totally a no go option.
12. Thicker Sauces
We shouldn't used thicker sauces without diluting it as this will cause burns in the electric pressure cooker. Neither the sauce can be sued as a substitute for water, broth, or stocks. Because the electric pressure cooker needs extra liquid for steam in order to create the pressure.