Category Archives: Pressure Cooker

Kung Pao Chicken In The Pressure Cooker, Very Impressed With Myself.

Posted in Chicken, Dinner, Easy dinner, Pressure Cooker by

I combined several recipes and methods then panicked, flapped and made an excellent Kung Pao chicken dinner. This is seriously going down as a regular dinner in our house. It is pretty healthy and is one of those recipes that will get easier the more you make it.

Apparently, it makes good leftovers.

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Kung Pao Chicken - Muffinmum.com

  • Servings: 3-4
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The sauce

1/3 cup soy sauce (I use low sodium)

1 tablespoon of honey

3 tablespoon hoisin sauce

1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, minced

1 heaped teaspoon ginger (I use the stuff from the pot as it lasts longer)

1 teaspoon chili flakes (more or less to taste)

1/2 cup water

2-3 dried chilies

Ingredients

2 tsp sesame oil

2 chicken breast cut into roughly 2cm chunks

1 tablespoon cornflour

Salt and pepper

1 onion cut into small cubes

2 capsicum in small cubes

1/2 head broccoli sliced through so it is thin

1/2 cup peanuts or cashews

2 tsp cornflour mixed with enough water to make 1/4 cup of paste

Instructions

To make sauce mix everything in a jug. If you are making it in advance, don’t add the dried chili until you add it to the multi-cooker

Put multi-cooker on the saute setting to heat.

Place chicken, cornflour, salt and pepper in a plastic pot with a lid or bag and shake.

Add sesame oil to the multi-cooker and when sizzling add the chicken and onion to brown.

When the chicken and onion are browned add the sauce.

Lock the lid on and set the pressure cooker for 4 minutes. When the 4 minutes have finished leave the pressure cooker for 4 minutes to release pressure naturally (NPR).

Prepare the capsicum, broccoli and cornstarch mix while the pressure cooker is doing its magic.

Release the remaining steam and lift the lid, add the vegetables, cook for 3-4 minutes stirring to stop the sauce from burning.

Add the cornflour paste stir, then add nuts.

Remove dried chili and serve with rice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Pressure Cooker- It Just Gets Better, Chicken Biryani.

Posted in Books, Chicken, Cook Book, Dinner, Easy dinner, Gadgets, Pressure Cooker by

To be honest, when I got my pressure cooker I didn’t think I would use it half as much as I do. I love it. When the day comes that the kitchen gets revamped we will live off pressure cooker meals. We cook all sorts in it and it is great. So much more taste than slow cooker meals. There is still a bit of faffing around but once that lid is on and it is doing its thing, there is freedom.

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Currently, our favourite thing to cook is Indian Food. I am following the recipes of another blogger, Two Sleevers. She has a great FB group where everyone is very friendly and full of advice. For a while there I was just an observer but I bought the book and it is my most used recipe book. I used it just tonight.

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Our dinner this evening was a very good chicken biryani from Two Sleevers book. It didn’t look much, it was marvellous and full of taste. The only things I changed were sneaking in a few frozen mixed vegetables right at the end and using chicken breasts. It was a really decent dinner.

If you are sitting on the fence about getting a pressure cooker, I say do it. You can email me and ask anything. I have a Sunbeam Avia which was on sale at JBHIFI a while ago.

You can see my post about cheesecake in the pressure cooker here.

 

Facebook Didn’t Lie- I love the BexanCo NZ Cashew Nut Curry.

Posted in Chicken, Curry, Dinner, Pressure Cooker, Things I love by

 

You know when Facebook tells you that you will like a certain page and you click and think ,YEAH! Well that happened with me and BexanCo NZ. I clicked the link to the page, shared the page on my Muffin Mum page to ask if anyone had tried it. BexanCo got back to me and offered me a couple of sachets to try. Us Muffins love our spicy food and buy our rice in bulk, I wasn’t going to say no. Tonight we tried the Cashew Nut Curry.

 

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To be honest, I didn’t expect to be impressed and was wondering why I would buy a sachet of spices? I have spices in my cupboard and can make a good mix. However, my spices are not fresh. I confess I am a spice hoarder and it has to stop.

This sealed packet of perfectly balanced spices and cashews was fresh, very fresh and smelt delicious. To cook I went a little off track from the directions on the packet and used the Pressure Cooker.

I browned the onions, then the chicken, added the spice, a drained tin of chopped tomatoes and a tin of coconut milk.

I cooked it in the pressure cooker for ten minutes, did the instant release and added some frozen international vegetables, I simmered for about 10 minutes.

This Cashew Nut Curry was delicious, seriously delicious.  I would happily serve it at a dinner party and be proud. That is a very an excellent approval rating from me.  BexanCo NZ impressed me and I didn’t expect it. Mr Muffin commented that it wasn’t a curry he would normally order but it had opened his eyes. It was similar to a Madras in a NZ curry house. The spice rating was balanced and Miss ate a good sized portion and no complaints were heard.

All up, yes I would buy the Cashew Nut Curry, it was a great easy dinner in the pressure cooker and we all look forward to trying the BexanCo NZ Curry.

I apologise for the not very impressive photos but we were hungry

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You Baked A Cheesecake In A Pressure Cooker?

Posted in Baking, Chocolate, Dessert, Pressure Cooker, Things I love, vegetarian by

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Yes, I did.

We recently purchased a multi cooker with a pressure cooker setting and we are loving it. I am using the term we because Mr has got on the Pressure Cooker bandwagon and has perfected a chicken and cashew dish. The most interesting thing I have made is the cheesecake.

This cheesecake is the best I have ever made. It is a thing of beauty, well not when it first comes out and looks a bit like the moons surface, it defiantly needs some form of decorating to make it look fab. It certainly tastes fab.

The recipe I used is a mash up of a couple. I combined my favourite biscuit base from Hummingbird Bakery and the cheese part is from Great Big Pressure Cooker Book : 500 Recipes For Every Day And Every Make Of Machine.  I tweaked and made it mint flavoured with nice layers effect. One layer was chocolate mint and the the top was mint chocolate chip.

Right, the recipe. If you don’t get any of my bumbling let me know and I will clear anything up. The most important thing is to have the sour cream and cream cheese at room temperature, I said ROOM TEMPERATURE. My plan is to keep the basic recipe the same but use different types of chocolate. I see a future where I add cherry in some form.

Above you can see the foil sling, the cheesecake in the cooker with the handles folded back and the final result. If you look closely at the final result you will see a few finger dents. I tested it by touching it and feeling it was solid.

 

Chocolate Cheesecake In The Pressure Cooker - Muffinmum.com

A 20cm (8 inch diameter) spring-form cake tin (check fits in pressure cooker) lightly oiled – butter is fine.

About 50 cm length of foil folded in to 1/3 length ways

Base

220g (8oz) digestive biscuits (I used Wine biscuits)

100g (3½oz) unsalted butter, melted

Filling

2 packets of cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1/4 c packed dark brown sugar

1/4 c white sugar

1 egg plus 2 egg yolks (at room temp)

250g Whittakers Ghana Dark Peppermint

1/4 c sour cream

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put 2 cups of water in the pressure cooker and put the rack in too (should come with cooker)

Crush biscuits and stir in melted butter, leave for a few minutes for the butter to absorb

Put crumbs mix in base of prepared pan and press gently with a glass, craft the biscuits up the side of the tin so there is a lip of 2/3cm up the side

Place in fridge for a minimum of 1/2 hour

Break off 2 rows of the chocolate and set aside

Gently melt remaining chocolate in microwave or over a double boiler, allow to cool for 10 mins

In a food processor with a blade process the cream cheese and sugars until smooth

Scrape down the sides, add the whole egg and process.

Add yolks one at a time processing in between

Scrap sides again and add , sour cream , flour and vanilla

Process again until kind of soft and fluffy

Remove 1/3 of the mix and put into a bowl, cut the 2 lines of chocolate into chunks and stir through this mix

Add the melted chocolate  in to the remaining  2/3 of mix

Place prepared tin onto the centre of your foil sling , you are going to use it to take the pan out of the pressure cooker

Pour  chocolate mixture onto the biscuit base and then top with the chocolate chunk mix

Give it a gentle wobble to level

Using the sling, lower the pan into the pressure cooker. Try to make sure the foil is pushed away so it doesn’t cover the pan at all but you can unroll to use as handles

Cook on High for 25 mins

Unplug the pressure cooker at the wall and allow to release pressure naturally

Remove using the sling

There may be water on the top, don’t panic just blot with a piece of kitchen roll

Run a knife around the outer edge/tin to loosen

Allow to cool on a rack for 1 hour, refrigerate for a few hours before eating.

Decorate the top with whatever takes your fancy, sorry but it isn’t pretty. I grated a Whittakers Mint Sante Bar over the top

Enjoy