Our New Pressure Cooker

Around here, we are big fans of cast iron. The same cookware we use every day at home comes with us when we travel. Cast iron is tough, efficient, easy to clean and maintain on the road and works very well on any possible heat source. Having said that…

This week we added a new item to our traveling kitchen. We purchased a 3L Hawkins Futura pressure cooker.   Hawkins is a well established manufacturer of pressure cookers and is located in India. In Indian cooking, pressure cookers are an essential part of nearly every kitchen. We figured that if anyplace knows something about daily use of pressure cookers in all conditions, it’s India.

Hawkins 3L Pressure Cooker

Pressure cookers for travel have a few significant advantages:

1. They cook anywhere from 50% to 70% faster than standard cooking pots

2. Because of this they save a lot of fuel

3. They are sealed, with a controlled rate of steam release, therefore they use less water than conventional cooking methods

These three advantages mean that food preparation on the road just got a lot easier and less expensive. Because of these advantages, a few staples carried on the road along with very basic supplies from any grocery store can be cooked on any camp stove or even coals from a campfire.

This week has been dedicated to cooking as much as possible with the pressure cooker, familiarizing ourselves with meal preparation, cooking times and water levels. So far, every meal we have cooked has been very successful. We have made curried chicken and rice with vegetables, black bean and sweet potato chili, split pea soup, lentil soup, and cinnamon apple oatmeal.

 

Now if this snow would just melt, we can get outside and try it out on the road.