Instant Pot recipes – Beyond Umami

Creamy Bacon Kale Potato Soup for A Rainy Day (or Any Day) – Slow Cooker Recipe

Beyond Umami — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 17:28:00 +0000

I used to not like Kale. I wouldn’t say I hated it but I found it bitter and weird. I didn’t understand why people liked it so much, but recently I was surprised to find that I have grown to love Kale. A few years ago we started making crispy kale chips (super easy) from purchases at farmer’s market. From our recent stay in Ottawa, I really enjoyed Farm Boy’s super tasty kale caesar salad so much so that I started to make kale salads at home.

I was craving hot soup during a stretch of rainy days in Edmonton. In a mission to “clear out the fridge” I did a quick inventory looking for ingredients to put into a soup. My eyes landed on the kale that had been sitting in the fridge for the past week and the last of the potatoes (some of which were sadly looking a bit suspicious). Combine the above with the bacon in our freezer we had a winning combination for soup!

I used the slow cooker function on our instant pot to make the soup but you can also do this as a pressure cooker or over the stove top as well.

Ingredients for Bacon Kale Potato Soup

1 package bacon (reserve 4-5 strips for soup topping)
1 onion; diced
3-4 cloves of garlic; diced
5 – 6 medium sized yellow potatoes; washed, peeled and cut
1 carton (900mL) no salt added chicken stock (6 cups)
bundle of kale leaves; washed
1 cup of milk or cream (optional)

Directions for Bacon Kale Potato Soup

Prep ingredients. Wash, peel and cut potatoes. Dice garlic and onions.
Prep kale leaves by cutting off the hard stems and keeping only the leaves. Wash and dry kale leaves.
Turn on the saute mode of the Instant Pot and place 6-7 strips of bacon inside. If making this recipe on the stove top, use a heavy bottomed dutch oven or similar. Remember to reserve a few pieces to cook later.
Saute until the bacon is partially cooked and then add in the diced onions and garlic.
Continue stirring until the bacon pieces are cooked and the onion has browned (about 8 minutes).
While still on saute mode, add in the potato pieces and stir for a minute.
Turn off saute mode and add in the chicken stock.
Switch to slow cook mode and allow the soup to slow cook for 8 hours.

pressure cooking: use the pressure cook mode and pressure cook the soup for approximately 12 minutes. Allow to naturally release.
stove top: turn element to high and then once the soup bubbles turn down to a simmer. Allow soup to cook uncovered on the stove top for at least an hour or until the potatoes have softened. Stir occasionally. Use a fork to check softness.

While soup is cooking, fry reserved strips of bacon in a separate pan. Fry until crispy. Take off pan and pat dry bacon between sheets of paper towels. This helps to remove extra bacon oil. Break into smaller pieces when cool. (reserve bacon oil for other cooking adventures).
After the soup is finished cooking, blend soup until smooth. Use a stick blender or carefully transfer to a blender (vitamix or similar) to blend until desired consistency.
Transfer soup back to the instant pot, and turn back onto saute mode. Once the soup bubbles add in a handful of kale leaves. As the soup is still hot it will slightly cook down the kale leaves.
Add in a cup of milk or cream if using at this stage.
Assemble your soup. Pour into your favourite bowl (in my case one of my newest wheel thrown bowls) and top with crispy bacon and kale.

one of the biggest wheel thrown bowls I have made so far! Isn’t it lovely?

We paired our Creamy Bacon Kale Potato Soup with some homemade mushroom arancini. You can find the recipe for my arancini here.

Crispy Mushroom Arancini sitting in one of my wheel thrown pots.

This is a super quick recipe that I hope you will make. It is perfect for a rainy day or any day for that matter. The savoury bacon pairs perfectly with the “healthy veggie” kale flavour. You can control the hearty-ness of the soup with the amount of potatoes you used. The addition of the cream or milk does make this soup more creamy, but it is optional.

Slow Cooker/Instant Pot Chicken Teriyaki

Beyond Umami — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:40:00 +0000

I have been slowly playing around with the slow cooker function on my Instant Pot and have been cooking various versions of Chicken Teriyaki. This is also because the bone in chicken thighs have been a good price! After you slow cook the chicken, you can choose to just reduce the sauce and serve as is or for extra flavour take out the chicken thighs and bake them!

I put all my ingredients together into the Instant Pot the night before; hence the many hours of slow cooking.

Ingredients for Chicken Teriyaki

1 tablespoon of olive oil
8 cloves of minced garlic
1 tsp sliced ginger
2/3 cup Sake
2/3 cup Soy Sauce
2/3 cup Mirin
2 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
18-20 bone in chicken thighs

3 tsp cornstarch mixed with water (for reducing the sauce)

*I have used the club pack from Superstore or the one from Wholesale Club

Directions for Slow Cooker/Instant Pot Chicken Teriyaki

Turn on the “Saute” function on the Instant Pot. Add a tablespoon of oil and ensure that the bottom is evenly coated.
Add in the minced garlic and saute until the garlic starts to brown. Stir in the sliced ginger.
Pour in the 2/3 cup of sake. Allow the sake to boil off as you stir the garlic; approximately 30 seconds.
Stir in the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, sugar and honey until it is all incorporated. You can adjust the sweetness level here as needed.
Add in the chicken thighs. Push them down until the top layer of chicken is mostly covered with the sauce.
Close the lid of the Instant Pot, turn the vent to the “vent” position.
Turn on the “Slow Cook” function and slow cook for a minimum of 8 hours. If I am prepping the recipe the night before, I usually just have it slow cook for 14 hours so it will be continue to slow cook the next day as well.
8 hours later, open the lid to check on the chicken. Turn the top pieces over so that they can also cook in the liquid.
When the chicken is done slow cooking, open the lid and carefully pour out all the liquid into a large pot. Turn the heat onto medium-high. Mix the 3 tsp of cornstarch with a bit of water. Once the sauce begins to boil pour in the cornstarch mixture. This will help to thicken the sauce a bit. Reduce the sauce for about 5 minutes.
While the sauce is reducing, preheat the oven to 450F.
Place the chicken pieces onto a baking sheet. Ladle sauce onto each of the chicken pieces. Bake at 450F for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired before serving. Serve the remaining sauce with the chicken while eating with rice or quinoa.

Pressure Cooked Instant Pot Mushroom Risotto

Beyond Umami — Sat, 06 Jan 2018 04:29:00 +0000

Mushroom Risotto made in the Instant Pot

Last night I made risotto in the Instant Pot! Yes, you read that right, a dish that would traditionally take time over the stove-top was cooked in the Instant Pot. The best thing was that we were able to pressure cook the risotto in the Instant Pot; thus cutting down the “hands on” actively stirring time that risotto typically needs. Now, don’t get me wrong I do love making risotto the regular old fashioned way (typically in my dutch oven). In fact, I have a recipe on this blog for a Creamy Shiitake Mushroom Risotto. However, given that I am not currently cooking in my own kitchen, all I have for kitchen appliances is an Instant Pot that Dan received as a gift. So yesterday afternoon I ventured out in the cold Ottawa weather (it was actually quite warm compared to today’s real feel of -43C) and bought all the ingredients we would need for making the risotto.

The Instant Pot that we used for this recipe is the 4 quart Lux Mini. In terms of timing, it took about 10-12 minutes of prep (washing, cutting, cooking down of onions & garlic, and stirring). Everything else was handled by the Instant Pot on pressure cooking mode. You only need to set it for 7 min pressure cook! All in all, with the time it takes to pressure, cook and de-pressure it was about 15 minutes. So, definitely super quick.

Ingredients for Instant Pot Risotto

2 medium yellow onions (chopped)
2-3 cloves of garlic (sliced)
1 cup (or 1 small container) crimini mushrooms sliced (add more if you wish!)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups superfino arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 cups chicken stock (we used the 30% less salt version but any chicken stock can be used)
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano
2 tablespoons of cream or milk (optional)

Recipe for Instant Pot Risotto

Set the Instant Pot to “sauté mode”. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil (it will take 2 minutes or so to heat up ). Add garlic to start.
Once the garlic starts to sizzle add in the chopped onions. Stir often and sauté until the onions become transparent (5-6 minutes)
Add in the rice. Stir often until the rice becomes lightly golden from being “toasted” (about a minute). Then add in the white wine. Once the white wine has cooked off (30-40 seconds), stir in the mushrooms.
Add in the chicken stock. Stir until all 4 cups have been incorporated.
Turn off the “sauté mode” on the Instant Pot. Next, press “manual” mode (this is the pressure cook mode) and set it for 7 minutes. Wait until the mixture starts to boil (little bubbles will appear), stir the inside a bit and then put the lid on. Ensure the knob on the top of the lid is set to “seal” mode.
The Instant Pot will beep when it is done cooking. Once it is done, gently push the knob on the top of the lid to venting. Be careful and do not stand too close as hot steam will come out. We typically place our Instant Pot under the stove hoodrange and set the fan on high while the Instant Pot is venting.
When venting is complete, open the Instant Pot to see the 7 minute pressure cooked risotto. It will appear watery at first. Using a spoon stir vigorously. This will help to break up the starches. Next gently stir in the cheese and milk/cream if using.
Serve! Add salt and pepper to taste. For this meal we pan fried two steaks while the risotto was cooking in the Instant Pot and assembled a simple salad with a balsamic and olive oil dressing.

So there you have it, Pressure-cooked risotto done in the Instant Pot. Some of you may be thinking that the risotto looks great and all but how does it taste? Does it taste differently compared to stove top cooking or even in a regular pressure cooker.

The answer is that it tastes and looks exactly the same! Yes, exactly the same. If I didn’t know any better risotto cooked in the Instant pot looks visually similar to ones I have made on the stove top as well as in the regular pressure cooker. With stove top risotto you need to stand there the entire time, stirring often in order for the rice to cook evenly. Risotto cooked in a pressure cooker still needs to be monitored but doesn’t require stirring for any long periods of time. The biggest difference between a stove top and electric pressure cooker (like an instant pot) is the timer on an electric pressure cooker helps makes things more precise (no need to guess when it’s pressurized). Time precision is pretty important when it comes to such a short cook time (7 minutes) for risotto. Taste wise it is the same as well. The risotto, while creamy, is not mushy and has the al dente bite to it.

Would I go back to making risotto the regular way? Now that I have made Instant Pot Risotto I am highly tempted to continue making it this way. Think about all the possibilities for being able to make risotto on a week night after work (which is what we did yesterday)! What do you think? Will you make risotto in your Instant Pot, Pressure Cooker or will you continue to make it over the stove?

Using an Instant Pot to Pressure Cook Tandoori Pulled Pork

Beyond Umami — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 23:03:00 +0000

Pressure Cooked Pulled Pork with a Tandoori BBQ Rub using an Instant Pot

Dan and I got an Instant Pot back in November during the awesome Amazon Black Friday sales. Before I met Dan, he was a huge advocate for using pressure cookers as opposed to slow cookers. According to him, pressure cookers are great for Chinese soups, rice porridge, and stews because they are not only energy efficient, but just as easy as slow cooking. The noise of the “rocker” on Dan’s pressure cooker always intimidated me because it made me think that it was about to explode! Over the past few months, with the much quieter Instant Pot I have
slowly become more confident in using the pressure cooker / slow cooker myself.

A few weeks ago, Mini Kitchen gave me a set of their spices to use and experiment in my cooking. This was the perfect chance to experiment with making pressure cooked pulled pork in the Instant Pot. The spice kit contains seven different spices – from the various spices I decided to try out the Mini Kitchen’s Tandoori BBQ Rub.

I’m super impressed with how our flavourful the pork and the sauce was. Certainly we normally associate the tandoori with chicken but this was a great fusion of Indian spice and a western style dish.

Ingredients for Instant Pot Tandoori BBQ Rub Pulled Pork

3 lbs pork loin or hock
1 onion diced
2-3 cloves of diced garlic
2 tablespoons Tandoori BBQ Rub spice
1/2 cup water

Directions:

Turn Instant Pot on and set to saute function. Saute onions and garlic together for 2-3 minutes.
Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of Tandoori BBQ rub onto the onions and garlic. Gently stir the spices into the mixture.
Once the onions and garlic have cooked down (about 4-5 minutes), place the pork on top of the mixture.
Gently sear on both sides – still in the saute function of the Instant Pot. Then pour the half cup of water along the sides of the Instant Pot.
Place the lid on the Instant Pot and set on Manual (Pressure Cooker) mode. Set the time for 70 minutes.
Tip: To gently pull apart the pork use a stand up mixer with the dough hook attached. Using tongs gently transfer the pork to the bowl of the stand up mixer.
Turn the stand mixer to stir and it will gently pull apart the pork.
Once the pork has been pulled apart, transfer it back into Instant Pot bowl and mix well with the reserved liquid.

Pressure cooking the pork loin in the spices, really infuses the meat with flavours especially when you return the shredded pork back into the sauce. We have since cooked both pork loin and pork hock using this method and both times there is flavour and juicy meat. Using 2 tablespoons of the spice was just right as there was still a hint of heat but not too much. You could always increase it by cooking the meat with another tablespoon of spice if you want more intense flavours.

With this recipe we served the Tandoori BBQ pulled pork on top of soba noodles and asparagus with a dollop of sour cream, lettuce wraps with coleslaw and another time we had it in a salad topped with a sunny heritage egg and balsamic glaze!