Pressure cooked!

Pressure cooked Curried Lamb with Potatoes (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)

Hi Everyone,

Have you ever cooked meat, or poultry, such as duck, in a pressure cooker only to have it turn to shreds? A mass of mush? I have.

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I went shopping for meat to make Porchetta (Italian-style rolled roasted pork belly). As the butcher prepped the meat, his assistant electrically sawed some pork knuckles (ham hocks) into halves. Thoughts of Porchetta faded (if you can imagine that); the fresh pork hocks cooked low and slow – meat easily separated from the bone, skin soft, almost melting seemed more inviting.

As I expressed my thoughts aloud, the butcher turned his head away from me and said to one of my friends in a conspiratorial tone, “Man de pressure cooker destroys the meat”.