HAPPY FUN INSTANT POT

At work we have a #talk-food chat channel, and several people evangelize the Instant Pot™, a many-functioned electric device which does:

• Sauté
• Slow Cook
• Pressure Cook
• Rice Cook
• Steam
• Yogurt(!)

(They say "7-in-1," but they may somehow be counting the various pressure and temperature levels. The models bigger than 3 quarts have a few more complex automated programs.)

Being as the small one is $80, I hadn't planned to get one; but the cute little one-button rice cooker I bought off a friend has a peeling nonstick coating, and burns a bottom layer of the morning quinoa. Anna wanted a rice cooker with a stainless steel insert, and at that point you're looking at programmable rice cookers in the $80 range anyway.

Apparently pressure cookers have been an Indian family favorite for decades, though I'm not sure how I only just learned that. Much Instant Pot™ evangelism starts with someone making a Butter Chicken just like their mother or grandmother. I tried a pressure cooker on the sailboat, where cruisers like it for its reduced fuel usage, but it was mysterious and awkward. You had to watch it, wait for it to reach pressure and tell you so via the rattling of Widget #1, turn the heat off after some number of minutes, then when Widget #2 un-clicks or something, then leave it alone for another number of minutes, then vent it. I knew at least a little about cooking by then, but--setting aside the constant monitoring--how did you know how long to apply which phase? How could you adapt random recipes?

The Instant Pot™ uses a tiny computer to handle most of this nonsense for you, and furthermore it appears that once said nonsense is taken out of your hands, pressure cooking is pretty forgiving. Anna has made a fantastic beef stew a couple times (taking maybe 1-2 hours instead of 6 or 7) and gave it her highest accolade: "I can get rid of my Crock-Pot now."