Advantages
Foods cook much faster with pressure cooking than with other methods (except for small quantities in microwave ovens). Pressure cooking requires much less water than conventional boiling, so food can be ready sooner. Less energy is required than that of boiling, steaming, or oven cooking. Since less water or liquid has to be heated, the food reaches its cooking temperature faster. Using more liquid than necessary wastes energy because it takes longer to heat up (the liquid quantity is mentioned in the recipe or manufacturer's instructions, which takes into account the cooking duration and capacity of the pressure cooker). Pressure cookers can use much less liquid than the amount required for boiling or steaming in an ordinary saucepan.
Several foods can be cooked together in the pressure cooker, either for the same amount of time or added later for different times. Manufacturers provide steamer baskets to allow more foods to be cooked together inside the pressure cooker.
Food is cooked at a temperature above the normal boiling point of water, killing most micro-organisms. A pressure cooker can be used as an effective sterilizer for jam pots, glass baby bottles, or for water while camping.
It is not necessary to immerse food in water. The minimum quantity of water or liquid used in the recipe to keep the pressure cooker filled with steam is sufficient. Because of this, vitamins and minerals are not leached (dissolved) away by water, as they would be if food were boiled in large amounts of water. Due to the shorter cooking time, vitamins are preserved relatively well during pressure cooking.
The pressure cooker speeds cooking considerably at high altitudes, where the lower atmospheric pressure reduces the boiling point of water. Lower water temperature reduces water's effectiveness for cooking or preparing hot drinks. The increased temperatures due to pressure cooking are also used to promote the Maillard reaction to develop more desirable flavor profiles that would not be obtainable using temperatures typical of boiling. The flavours are more concentrated in the higher temperature and sealed environment of the pressure cooker, so less seasoning is required.
Read more about this topic: Pressure Cooking
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