Instant Pot, Yay or Nay?

Bandwagonning has never tasted so delicious

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Playdo who once said, "A toaster is complete in itself- reduced to a single form commensurate with its function- while a toaster oven is debased by pretensions of being an oven or whatever." This aphorism has truly lasted the test of time.

The Instant Pot and its similar competitors have brought pressure cooking back into vogue. I remember my mother using a stovetop pressure cooker a handful of times in my early childhood, but it's probably been decades since she's used it, if she still has it at all. Trends come and go in the world of cookery and the rise of electric, safe pressure cookers such as the Instant Pot have brought this one back. So this Christmas we got an Instant Pot, the 8 quart Lux model you see here.

In theory, pressure cooking reduces the amount of time it takes to cook food, especially tough pieces of meat, to tenderness. These new electric pressure cookers also include functions to steam and sauté, along with preset pressure cooking settings for stew, soup, rice and others. The marketing line is that one device can do all sorts of things you would need multiple pots and pans for. Save time! No hassle cleanup! Throw your other pots and pans away!

Since Christmas, I've cooked ribs, pasta, rice, bread pudding, mashed potatoes, corned beef brisket, and beef stew in it. On the whole, the results have been decent, and in some cases excellent. But there are downsides, and I find that often times it is not really any faster to cook using the Instant Pot compared to using a normal pot or the oven.

Here are some pros and cons I've learned while using it:

Pros

• Quick weeknight ribs are excellent. 30 minutes under pressure followed by a couple minutes under the broiler made delicious, fall-off-the-bone tender ribs. 
• Mashed potatoes, especially a large quantity, are very convenient, since you don't have to drain the potatoes once they are cooked. Just add some milk, butter and any other toppings after the potatoes are cooked and mash them right in the pot. 5 lbs of Yukon gold potatoes took 12 minutes and were very good. 
• Creamy pasta recipes work very well. I made a couple of Jeffrey's recipes from www.pressureluckcooking.com and they were fast and delicious. His sausage and shells recipe was outstanding, and it made enough to feed our large family. Again, no need to drain the pasta, which saves a step. 
• The pot itself seems to be built well. The inner pot (where you put the food) is of good quality stainless steel. The entire unit is pretty heavy, which provides a sense of safety while using high pressure. 
• Sautéing is a nice feature to have for simple browning of vegetables and aromatics. It's also very handy if you need to reduce a sauce after pressure cooking. 
• The unit automatically keeps warm after the cooking is done.

Cons

• It can be hard to modify a recipe you find in a book or the internet. If the recipe calls for so much liquid, but you want to scale the pasta by 50%, how much do you need to add then?
• The unit takes some time to come to pressure, and some time to release the pressure. Depending on what you are cooking, it's not much faster than just putting the food in a regular pot. 
• Browning meat is hit or miss. The bottom of the pot is slightly domed, so oil runs off the middle (where the heating element is) and to the outer edges. Also, there are only 3 temperature settings, which makes adjustments difficult. 
• My experiment with rice was not a success. The rice came out with good texture, but some of it stuck to the bottom. I'm not sure if there is something I did wrong. 
• Once you've set the pressure and time, there's no making adjustments. You can cancel the cook, and quick release the pressure, but you can't monitor the progress of the cook while it's underway. If you selected too much time at the beginning, you are mostly stuck with the results. 
• It's yet another kitchen gadget you have to find a place for, and this one is pretty large. 

Would I buy the Instant Pot again? Probably. We cook dinner virtually every night, and I do most of the cooking after a full day of work. The convenience of cooking pasta or making mashed potatoes is very useful to me as it cuts down on the number of pots to clean. The lack of adjustment during cooking are a bummer, so I think this is the sort of device where, once you have a recipe that works, you don't change it too much.