Tag Archives: Instant Pot

Pressure Cooker Beef (or Oxtail) Barley Soup

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One of my favorites, made quickly with a twist.

Oxtails
Oxtails, fresh from the butcher.

One of my favorite “comfort foods” is beef barley soup. I blogged my recipe last December; here’s the pressure cooker version that’ll get yummy barley goodness to your mouth quicker. But rather than use plain old stew meat, this time I used fresh oxtails that I picked up from a local butcher this past week. I whipped it up in my Instant Pot in about an hour.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil. The original recipe called for cooking spray. But why not use a little olive oil instead?
  • 2 pounds oxtails, trimmed (or 1 to 1-1/2 pounds stew meat, trimmed and cut into 1/2- to 1-inch pieces). You can make it with less meat, but if you have more, use it. It’ll make a heartier soup.
  • 3-4 large carrots, sliced. Carrots are a must-have in any meat-based soup.
  • 2-3 stalks of celery, sliced. I don’t care for celery, but it is part of the aromatic trilogy.
  • 1 large onion, chopped. The third member of the aromatic trilogy, I put onions in most soups and stews. I still have onions from my garden.
  • 1 large parsnip, sliced. If you can’t find parsnips, add another carrot or two, which is what I did today.
  • 1 medium turnip, cut into 1/2-inch cubes. I skipped this today.
  • 4 cups fat-free, low-sodium beef broth. Today I cheated and used water with bullion, which is the only thing I had.
  • 1 bay leaf.
  • 2/3 cup uncooked pearl barley.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt. You can probably omit the salt if you don’t use low-sodium beef broth. I did, but then again, I’m trying to keep my salt intake down. Remember you can always add salt; you can’t remove it.
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Pepper is always good with beef.

Instructions:

These instructions are for an Instant Pot, but I tried to include generic pressure cooker instructions, too.

  1. Heat the pressure cooker for browning. On an Instant Pot, press Sauté.

  2. Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat.
  3. Add oxtail or stew meat to pot and cook until browned on all sides.
  4. Remove meat from pot with a slotted spoon and set aside.
  5. Add vegetables to the pot; cook 6-8 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates.
  6. Return beef to pot with beef broth and bay leaf.
  7. Bring to a simmer and turn off the pressure cooker.
  8. Stir in remaining ingredients
  9. Cover and lock down the cover. Set the pressure cooker to high for 20 minutes. (On an Instant Pot, press Manual and set to 20.
  10. When pressure cycle is over turn pressure cooker off and allow pressure to release naturally. This should take about 15 to 20 minutes.
  11. Remove cover carefully, fish out bay leaf, and serve.

Oxtail Barley Soup
Oxtail barley soup. It was delicious!

Keep in mind that the longer you cook the pearl barley or let it sit in the hot soup, the more liquid it will absorb. The net result could be more of a stew than a soup. If you want a soupier soup, either reduce the amount of barley or increase the amount of broth.

This yields about six to eight servings, depending on serving size. I think it would be excellent with some crusty bread on a cold winter day.

Instant Pot Chicken Mole

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Another great recipe for my pressure cooker.

Chicken Mole
Chicken mole from my Instant Pot.

A friend came by for dinner yesterday. I expected her at 5 and worked down in the garage until 4:50 PM. I wasn’t worried about time; I was cooking up dinner in my Instant Pot and had all the ingredients ready. She kept me company while I got everything into the pot and we drank wine and snacked on caprese with tomatoes from my garden and fresh mozzarella while we waited.

Here’s my version of the Mole Chicken Chili recipe I found in my newPressure Cooker Perfection cookbook. I served it over white rice and it was delicious: slightly chocolatey from the cocoa, slightly sweet from the raisins, and with just enough heat to catch your attention from the chili powder and chipotle peppers.

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil.
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder.
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa.
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced.
  • 2 teaspoons minced canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce. This stuff, which you can find in the Hispanic food aisle of your grocery story — assuming your store has one — is spicy! I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the can. Freeze it in a small container?
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 2-1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth. If you use a quart sized container, as I did, you can use the remainder with water to make the rice. If you use canned chicken broth, you can get away with using one can and making up the difference to 2-1/2 cups with water.
  • 1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes. I used 3 medium, very ripe fresh tomatoes from my garden.
  • 1 cup raisins.
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter.
  • 3 to 4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, with fat trimmed off. The original recipe calls for 4 pounds bone-in thighs.
  • Salt and pepper.
  • 1 onion, halved and sliced in 1/2 inch thick pieces. I used a red onion from my garden.
  • 1 red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, cut into 1/2 inch pieces. In general, I don’t like peppers, but I’m trying very hard to like them so I included them.
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped.

Instructions

  1. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to Instant Pot and press Sauté to start heating.

  2. When oil is shimmering, add chili powder, cocoa, garlic, chipotle, cinnamon, and cloves. Cook about 30 seconds. (It will smell really good.)
  3. Stir in broth, tomatoes, raisins, and peanut butter. Be sure to scrape any bits of the dry ingredients off the bottom of the pan. (I have a silicone spoon I use for this and it does a great job without damaging any of my cookware.)
  4. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
  5. Remove the sauce from the pot and puree it in a blender. (I use an immersion blender, which does a great job.) Set it aside.
  6. Season chicken with salt and pepper.
  7. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in the pot.
  8. Add the onions and sauté until softened, about five minutes.
  9. Stir in sauce, chicken, and peppers.
  10. Cover and lock pot; close steam vent.
  11. On the Instant Pot, press Off and then press Manual and set the time to 20 minutes.
  12. When the timer beeps, press Off. Do a quick pressure release and then carefully remove the lid.
  13. Stir in cilantro and serve.

The original recipe instructs you to leave the red pepper out in step 9. Instead, when the pressure cooking is done, you remove the chicken and shred it. While doing that, you cook the pepper in the sauce for 10-15 minutes and then add the chicken back in. My way is quicker and easier and I’ve found that the chicken shreds a bit on its own as it’s served. Also keep in mind that if you use bone-in chicken, you should increase pressure cooking time to 25 minutes.

This makes a lot of food. With rice, it fed both of us two servings and there was enough leftover to give my friend some to take home and feed me at least two more meals. We were too full for dessert!

If you make this, let me know what you think.

Instant Pot Mac and Cheese with Chicken and Peas

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A one-pot dinner in 15 minutes.

Macaroni and Cheese
This looks a lot better than that orange stuff I used to eat.

Everyone loves macaroni and cheese, the ultimate comfort food. What’s better than home made?

I’ll admit it: for most of my life I’ve been hooked on Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese dinner. For years, it was almost a special treat to whip up a box of this unnaturally orange stuff at home. But with the rise of good mac and cheese and its popularity in restaurants, I started looking outside that blue box. And, after making this dish, I can’t see going back — ever.

This recipe is based on one I found in the Pressure Cooker Perfection cookbook by the folks at America’s Test Kitchens. It’s a great cookbook with nice color finished food photos — I’m a sucker for that in cookbooks — but it predates the Instant Pot I and so many of my friends have. Since I modified the recipe a bit for my own version, I figured I’d rewrite my version of it with Instant Pot-specific instructions. Here it is.

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces (2 cups) elbow macaroni. I used large elbows but I suspect you could use small ones or any other similarly sized/shaped pasta.
  • 2 cups water. I used cold water because the recipe didn’t specify otherwise.
  • 1 teaspoon salt.
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper. You can omit this is you prefer not to have the spice.
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard. I used the full teaspoon and could really smell it when it was first cooking and wondered whether I should have cut back. But I couldn’t taste it in the finished product.
  • 1 12-ounce can evaporated milk. I used whole milk, although the original recipe says 2% is okay. Use fat free at your own risk. Please remember that evaporated milk is not the same as sweetened condensed milk, although they’re usually together on supermarket shelves.
  • 1 cup cooked chicken, chopped. I occasionally buy roasted chickens at the supermarket and, because I usually can’t eat a whole one by myself in two days, cut up the breast meat and freeze it in a vacuum-sealed packet. It’s perfect for recipes like this.
  • 1/2 to 1 cup frozen peas. I love peas and aways have a bag in my freezer. I didn’t measure; I probably used a whole cup!
  • 4 ounces (1 cup) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded. I bought it pre-shredded.
  • 4 ounces (1 cup) Monterey Jack cheese, shredded. I couldn’t find it pre-shredded so I had to shred it myself. In hindsight, I realize I could have bought a pre-shredded mild cheddar/Monterey Jack mix the supermarket offered in 8-ounce packages.

Instructions

  1. Mix macaroni, water, salt, pepper, and mustard in Instant Pot (or other pressure cooker).

  2. Cover and seal pot for pressure cooking.
  3. On Instant Pot, press Manual and set for 5 minutes. (On another pressure cooker, heat and cook at high pressure for five minutes.)
  4. When cooking is finished turn pressure cooker off, do a fast pressure release, and carefully remove lid.
  5. Stir pasta thoroughly. It should be mostly cooked with some water left in the pot.
  6. On Instant Pot, press Saute. (On another pressure cooker, heat to medium high.)
  7. Stir in milk, chicken, and peas.
  8. Cook until liquid is mostly gone and pasta is tender.
  9. Turn pressure cooker off and remove from heat.
  10. Stir in cheeses and serve.

This makes four good-sized servings, perfect for dinner.