It gave me the cooking time for chicken breasts as 6 minutes. However when I look at the recipes at the back, it tells me that I should brown the all the chicken in the pan for about 5 minutes each, I only did two minutes.
Just out of curiosity why would you not make stir fry in a pressure cooker? funny enough I was going to cook that tomorrow.
Part of a stir-friy's apeal lies in the texture of the food. Meat is cut into small cubes to cook quickly, as are the various veggies used. A small amount of high temperature oil, and a very hot wok, or heavy fry pan is used. The ingredients are placed in the pan, and stirred around until they are just cooked. Veggies should be slightly crunchy, and the meat should be done through, but only lightly browned.
This results in a tender, and juicy meat, surrounded by lighlty crisp veggies, and whatever flavorings that have been added, i.e. soy sauce, ginger, 5- spice, garlic, etc.
The pressure cooker will turn overcook the veggies. They will still taste ok, the the wonderful texture of a proper stir fry will be lost.
As far browning your chicken before cooking under pressure, this partially cooks the meat, but more importantly, it browns the meat surface, giving it a better flavor. If you brought it up to pressure, and cooked it for 15 minutes, then your chicken was definitely cooked through, especially if the recommended cooking time was 6 minutes. You almost tripled the recommended cooking time.
Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
