The Cooking Thread

[Chris L]

I bought Amy an Instant Pot for Christmas. Last week she made a terrific rice pudding that we dined on all week. Last night I passed her some recipes I found, via the New Yorker, for Indian cooking. The woman who created the recipes, Urvashi Pitre, has an entire book of Instant Pot Indian, Mexican, Korean and Thai recipes for sale, but quite a few of her recipes are available on the Instant Pot website:

https://recipes.instantpot.com/author/beverlyhaney/

Apparently Indian cooks now regularly use the Instant Pot to create meals, so the results must be authentic. I'm looking forward to our first 15-minute butter chicken.

[DiveMilw]

Butter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.

[Chris L]

Butter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.

I signed up for the IP Facebook group and signed Amy up to. She's already posted, briefly, in it. The message flow is pretty intense even by Facebook standards.
It was an article about the "Butter Chicken Lady" (who posts in that group) in the New Yorker that led to the trove of Indian recipes I passed on to Amy.

[AmyG]

Butter chicken is all the rage on the Instant Pot Facebook group.

I signed up for the IP Facebook group and signed Amy up to. She's already posted, briefly, in it. The message flow is pretty intense even by Facebook standards.
It was an article about the "Butter Chicken Lady" (who posts in that group) in the New Yorker that led to the trove of Indian recipes I passed on to Amy.

Okay, okay. I get the hint. I'll make it this week and leave some for when I'm out of town. 

[MartinG]

Drool!  

[AmyG]

I made the Butter Chicken. It was a little too much sauce for the amount of chicken the recipe called for. Maybe they expect you to eat a lot of rice with it. Also, the chicken was a bit overcooked for my taste. It took a long time for the Instant Pot to achieve pressure and I ended up stopping it and starting it again, reducing the pressure time down to 6 minutes from 10 when I restarted. That solved it but may have been part of the reason the chicken was overcooked.

But the sauce was tasty. I'll make it again with some adjustments next time. 

[Chris L]

The chicken may have been overcooked (I thought it melted in my mouth wonderfully), but the whole thing was delicious. And there was enough left over that Amy has set me up with three containers of what are essentially frozen microwave dinners that I can make while she spends a few days in DC so I can remember what a great cook she is while she's gone.

[DiveMilw]

I'm making the butter chicken tonight.  I have twice as much chicken so we will have plenty of leftovers.  I figure this will work out since the sauce makes twice as much as you need for one batch. I'll let you know the verdict after I'm done.

Also on the docket for tonight is Instant Pot Chashu.  This is pork belly prepared to accompany ramen.  Even in the pressure cooker it takes 90 mins to cook and then should "soak" overnight to absorb flavor and firm up to facilitate the cutting of thin slices.  

[DiveMilw]

I've been cooking my little heart out for the past 2.5 hours.  The Butter Chicken is on the table.  I think it turned out OK.  I skimped on the butter using only 2 oz (1/2 stick) instead of 4 oz since I used skin on chicken thighs and there was some chicken fat in the sauce.  

The pork belly is in the Instant Pot for 40 mins.  Then I'll release the pressure, turn it over and continue to cook for an additional 40 mins.  I might make that cook only 35 mins because I doubled the amount of cooking liquid and it will take longer to come up to pressure the first time around.  In hindsight I should have brought the cooking liquid up to at least a simmer before I added to pork belly. (You can easily do this by using the "saute" feature on the IP (Instant Pot).    I'll have to keep that in mind if there is a next time.  

[DiveMilw]

My pork belly is done cooking.  Now it needs to sit in the cooking sauce for at least overnight.
 [attach name=2018-01-20_20-46-43.jpg type=image/jpeg]285[/attach][attach name=2018-01-20_20-46-53.jpg type=image/jpeg]287[/attach]

[DiveMilw]

Here's Donna's sausage roll recipe that I made today.  I love how easy it is to throw together.  The hardest part is rolling out the dough and that's not very difficult.  

Sausage Roll a la Donna Migliaccio

Pizza dough, shredded cheese and sausage from our local Italian store. Bring dough to room temp. Pre-heat oven to 350. Remove sausage from casings and fry up in skillet. Drain off fat and let sausage cool while you roll dough into a large rectangle (ours was about 14x9 inches).
Spread cooked sausage across dough, leaving an inch-wide border all the way around. Follow with shredded cheese. Starting at the long edge of the dough, begin rolling toward you, tucking in and pinching the outside edges as you go. When you get to the end, pinch the dough to seal along the length of the roll and place the roll, seam side down, on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes or until a deep golden brown. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes and then cut in inch-wide slices. You can serve with marinara sauce or just devour as is.

[KathyB]

Sounds yummy. What temperature do you set the oven to?

[DiveMilw]

Sounds yummy. What temperature do you set the oven to?

350 degrees.

[DiveMilw]

I might make these Chickpea Tacos this week.  They are basically chickpeas mashed up with taco seasoning.  If you use canned chickpeas you don't need an Instant Pot to make the recipe. 

We'll see if I remember that I want to try this when I think about meals over the next couple of days.  I am very good at forgetting about the many, many recipes I want to make once it comes time to actually cook.