First foray into pressure cooking

[pacanis]

I got my pressure cooker in today, so tonight's dinner was going to be its maiden voyage. And also my first time using a PC.

The meat

Browning the meat. The oil seemed to favor the sides of the insert and this took a little longer than using a skillet. Still... one meal, one pot.

The meat was reserved and the veggies put in on the browning cycle for ten minutes. Don't ask me why I sliced the onions. A recipe I was 35% following said to. They evaporated or something cuz I sure couldn't find any an hour from now.
On the plus side, while I love chunks of cooked onions with butter, my usual crock pot chuck roast's flavor is consumed by onions. This roast wasn't.

Another don't ask me why... The recipe called for a tablespoon of tomato paste. It literally turned the whole dish orange after incorporating. The taste was good, but....

And the meat put back in before things are buttoned up and the timer set for one hour.

It looks pretty much the same after one hour. I expected some kind of hissing while cooking. I got none. As a matter of fact, I barely got a wisp of aroma to let me know it was even cooking. Certainly unlike a slow cooker going half the day.
Still, after the PC had turned itself off, pushing the 'quick release' switch got my pup running into the kitchen to see what the H was going on. My other two have learned to pretty much ignore me. This thing was definitely under some pressure and working, even if it didn't let on it was.
That orange color kills me. Certainly not like any beef dish I ever made.

Plated and ready to eat. You'll have to excuse the bite out of the bread... I was getting hungry.

So, it was defintely good. Everything done and tender. Flavor out the wazoo! When slow cooking a roast I like to put butter on the carrots, sour cream on the potatoes, and butter on the chunks of onions. This needed nothing as all the flavors had melded together throughout the veggies. Everything had a really great taste. I guess that's kind of good and kind of bad. I'm undecided. What's the purpose of different veggies if the only thing that's different is the texture? Not to mention those onions vaporizing on me. I think next time I'm going to forgo the tomato paste, but maybe that's what brought everything together, too....

So the frozen meat had sat out for two hours in the vaccuum seal. I started putting things together at 6:30 and was eating at 8:30. I'd say mission accomplished for my first time with the PC.
Now, how to turn all that juice into a soup....

 

[AMSeccia]

Looks like the epitome of comfort food to me ... I suppose a dash of worcestershire would have offset some of the orange color, but who cares if it tastes good? Maybe you'd prefer stewed tomatoes in with the vegies over the paste next time? Pot roast cooked with all the vegies is one of my all time favorite meals from childhood!

Congrats, I have never even tried pressure cooking (on my own). I remember doing it as a young girl, I guess.

 

[Andy M.]

Glad it went well.

The tomato paste adds a depth of flavor to the gravy. Looks like you could have used a little less liquid to start, resulting in a thicker gravy. What sis you use for the liquid?

Was there a lot of fat in the finished product?

 

[suziquzie]

Looks good!
I gotta have gravy though with my pot roast. Orange gravy... Halloween meal?

 

[pacanis]

I use a little worcestershire when doing it in a slow cooker. I wanted to use tomato paste because one time when I made a hamburger concoction, a lot of forum members said I needed a little tomato paste to give me that missing something I was looking for, so since the recipe called for it... I got adventurous
No tomatoes for me, not in a meat dish. I don't even like tomato paste or catsup added to meatloaf, but I might add some to the soup I make. First I need to come up with something. Maybe get some barley

I used 1-1/3 cups of beef broth, Andy. Kitchenelf was walking me through some things yesterday and said to follow whatever the PC called for when it came to adding the liquid. I expected it to reduce some, but if it did it was negligible. It did not "multiply" like using a slow cooker though.
I just looked at the insert pot sitting in the fridge where I kept the juice/gravy overnight, after first removing a lot of the veggies and the leftover roast to a tupperware container. There is absolutely no fat on it! Refrigerating after a slow cooker post roast always leaves me a layer of fat after it cools down, and for that matter, some on my plate as I'm eating. Not from the presure cooker. That's surprsing to me. Maybe pressure cooking reduces fat somehow?

Anyway, thanks all. It needs tweaked a bit, but I'll have no problems eating the leftovers

 

[Andy M.]

More likely the fat that is common in a chuck roast melted and was emulsified under pressure into the liquid.

When I make a pot roast, I add liquid to reach no more than half way upthe side of the meat. If you like, next time you can remove the roast after it's done and reduce the liquid with the top off. It won't reduce in the pressure cooker ad that's a closed environment.

 

[pacanis]

Good point on the melting fat.

Remove the roast and reduce the liquid?! That adds another step. I already had a whole two hours invested in this meal
I might give that a try if I feel like making gravy. I'll just put the PC back on that brown setting.

 

[LadyCook61]

Glad it went well. I've never tried pressure cooking, I don't own one.

 

[pacanis]

Thanks. I'm looking forward to making something else in it.

 

[Maverick2272]

Woo hoo way to go! Looks like you had fun and turned out something tasty. Don't ask me why, but I am loving the orange coloring, LOL.

 

[pacanis]

It was fun, Mav. I like using something new or different, plus a different method.
I just hope my electric bill doesn't go up (lol).