Pressure Cookers

The process of cooking food in a sealed container, which does not allow liquids or air to escape under a predetermined temperature, is known as pressure cooking. Since by increasing water’s boiling point, pressure inside the container can also be increased, the device used for performing pressure cooking is called a pressure cooker.

History of Pressure Cookers

A pressure cooker has been known by various other names. For the first time, it was invented in 1679 by a French physicist Denis Papin. At that time, it was known as steam digester. Similar to pressure cooker, a device used for hospital purpose to sterilize materials called an autoclave. Coming to food industry, the pressure cookers are termed as prestos or retorts.

Design

Generally, pressure cookers are saucepan crafted from stainless steel or aluminum with a sealing lid, which is sealed not to permit other liquids and especially air. Along with this technology, the pressure cooker comes with plenty of benefits and advantages, which other cooking appliances do not have.

Advantages of Pressure Cooker

• Unlike other cooking methods, cooking with a pressure cooker is much faster and delicious taste of the food items is not lost.
• To cook food like vegetables, pressure cooker doesn’t require much water and oil.
• Very small quantity of energy is needed, when cooking, steaming, or boiling.
• Foods inside a pressure cooker come quickly to cooking temperature, since it requires less quantity of water.
• Since the food inside pressure cooker boils above boiling point of water, the high temperature kills viruses and bacteria.
• This device is also used as an efficient sterilizer for glass baby bottles, jam pots, and camping.
• When you cook food by using pressure cooker, heat inside the cooker is very uniform and deep resulting in speedy cooking.
• To work with a pressure cooker, immersing food in water is not necessary. Little amount of water to produce steam is enough. So, minerals and vitamins are not dissolved by water and this process is very healthier than remaining cooking techniques.
• In comparison to lower altitudes, a pressure cooker cooks very fast at higher altitudes. This is due to atmospheric changes between higher and lower altitude levels.

Working of a Pressure Cooker

Subjecting high pressure and heat on food is the basic working principle of a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker works by using either electricity or the heat energy supplied by cooking gas or other sources.

Coming to its working, after placing food inside a pressure cooker, pour some water on the food; this is to produce steam and pressure. Then seal the cooker and a circular rubber is used for preventing air from escaping the cooker.

An outlet is designed on the top of pressure cooker to send steam out. A whistle is designed to fix to this outlet to produce some sound as an indication of progress in cooking process. Whenever you switch on the pressure cooker, after some time, steam will be produced inside the cooker due to evaporation of water.

Since the cooker gradually heats up, steam inside cooker increases and comes from the outlet. At this time, whistle will blow up, and after some whistles, food inside the pressure cooker gets cooked. The duration of cooking may vary depending upon several aspects such as the food item being cooked, the quantity of food, quantity of water used etc.

Watch this cool video to know more about working of pressure cooker: