I love pressure cooking, but I used to be afraid of it. Like many Americans I grew up on stories, real or apocryphal, of beef stew a la ceiling. But the new-generation pressure cookers have three levels of progressive safety features (if you reach the third, the gasket will simply melt) and the programmable, electric cookers are carefree. I bought one several years ago and was impressed immediately by the results, the energy savings and, of course, the speed. Succulent beef stew cooks in nine minutes and none of it ends up on the ceiling.
A whole chicken was one thing I hadn’t tried in it. Yesterday was a raw day. Cloudy, windy, feel-it-in-your-bones raw and I craved simple comfort food, even though I was seriously pressed for time. Chickens were on sale for 79 cents a pound, so I got a seven-pounder — the smallest available; the rest were the size of little turkeys — and a one-pound bag of baby carrots. I heated some oil in the cooker, seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper and a bit of cinnamon, browned it on both sides, added a cup of water and the carrots and set the timer. My owner’s manual and cookbooks disagreed on time. Some said five minutes per pound, some said seven. I opted for somewhere in between and cooked it for 45 minutes. It would have been 2:20 in the oven.
From a presentation standpoint, I now know I should have gone for 5-6 minutes per pound, because it was not stuffed. As you can see, the skin began to peel away (I remove it anyway) and the chicken split between the breasts. Even so, it remained most, including the breast meat, but did not taste overcooked and the carrots were not mushy. My only regret is not trying it sooner.
