1

According to the answers in this question, pressure cookers are primarily used to cook foods faster by changing the boiling point of water. (They are also used for preservation, but that's beside the point for this question).

Are there pressure-cooker specific foods? I've been looking, but I'm surprised that I can't seem to find recipes that absolutely require a pressure cooker. Surely the increased pressure will do something unique to certain types of foods, and that can be exploited to create new types of foods.

I know it's impossible to prove a negative, so if such foods really are virtually non-existant, then why is this the case?

Nathan Merrill
  • 137
  • 5

4 Answers4

4

Pressure speeds cooking by increasing the temperature from 212 to 250 Fahrenheit, but it also creates browning via the Maillard reaction.

Nathan Myhrvold says in "Modernist Cuisine at Home" on page 28:

The high temperatures inside the cooker also promote browning and caramelization, reactions that create flavors you can't get otherwise in a moist cooking environment.

According to Harold McGee, The Maillard reaction begins to occur at 250 Fahrenheit ("On Food and Cooking", Page 779).

Myhrvold gives a recipe for Caramelized Carrot Soup (p. 178). So there is an example of a recipe that requires a pressure cooker (i.e., it is not just the same results but faster).

Chris Noyes
  • 49
  • 2
3

Whether paitan broth is pressure cooker specific is perhaps debatable but cooking under high pressure makes the bones soft enough to blend. My wife actually made this last night and I can vouch for how well it works. The recipe she used says that long cooking in a normal pan will do it but not as effectively.

BWFC
  • 327
  • 1
  • 6
2

No.

Pressure cooking only speed up cooking.

Either many hours on the stove top/oven or 30 minutes at high pressure (times are just for the sake of discussion).

Max
  • 20,516
  • 1
  • 37
  • 53
2

It is hard to proof a negative but I am going to claim 'there are no such foods known'.

This is because pressure cookers are relatively new and any foods that can not be prepared in other ways will always have been called inedible.

Besides, the difference in temperature and pressure is noticable but not extremely so, likely less than many factory processes are different from home cooking and even that does not result in new foods, just new preparations.

Willeke
  • 2,130
  • 1
  • 11
  • 28