andrewducker | My kitchen adventures continue

Crossposts: https://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3659676.html

My kitchen adventures continue

Five years ago we got the kitchen refitted, and it was awesome to go from not having a dishwasher to...having a dishwasher. The only thing left to do was the tiling, and we were a bit short of cash, so we left that until we had some more savings.

Three years later I managed to half burn the kitchen down, so now there was a big black patch over where the tiling wasn't.

Today, finally, I got a tiler in. Specifically, this one in Liberton. And I was recommended them via Facebook, they organised everything over Facebook Chat, and then they arrived this morning at 8:30am, and were out by the time I got back, having transformed this:

into this

Sadly, I had to make the bolognese myself, but I am _really_ happy with the way it all looks.

Now I just have to not burn it down again for a bit.

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Oooooooh!

Looks great.

Lovely! I like oblong tile.

Yay tiles :-)

I also have something vaguely resembling bolognese on the hob (it contains more veg and mushroom than usual). I like to make it in the pressure cooker so there is less waiting for it to become yummy

I've never used a pressure cooker. How does one use one with Bolognese and such?

(This was also packed full of veg)

The point of pressure cookers, as I understand it, is that you take something that normally takes hours and you apply Science! to it and it takes deca-minutes instead.

We have an instant pot and it's great. It's basically a pressure cooker with extra computery stuff to stop you doing stupid things.

Oh, you can still do stupid things with it:

youtube.com/watch?v=dA369GWrVRo

Am I right in thinking that if the guys in that video hadn't been impatient idiots and had just let the pressure equalise naturally, they'd have had tasty soup and no mopping?

So we originally got it for things like brown rice and mashed potato which involve lengthy boiling; you put in the boiling water and starch and put the lid on, bring it up to pressure (when the main valve starts hissing) and let it cook for half the usual time.

For the bolognese I first browned the mushrooms (fry until water is driven off, get a bit of Maillard reaction going) then removed them, put in some pancetta and browned that gently, then bunged in onion/carrot/celery/garlic, cook till soft and starting to brown; then the MEAT and mushrooms, mix together and cook until not pink; then a tin of tomato, a glass of red wine, some tomato purée, herbs, bay leaves, one last mix, then on goes the lid. Bring up to pressure then let it ps ps ps ps gently for half an hour or so. Wewease pwessure; you may find you want to simmer a bit more to reduice the juice.

I drank the rest of the wine :-)

Am I right in thinking that the last bit is the crucial part in the recipe - that a proper ragu really wants to simmer throughout the day, and a pressure cooker brings that time down to something ordinary mortals can put up with?

The other thing about pressure cookers (or, at the very least, ours; other models may be available) is that you can cook beans in a reasonable time, rather than "shit, I didn't soak them overnight; oh well, no beans tonight".