One of my newest pieces of equipment is my pressure cooker. I'm very new to the land of pressure cooking, but am very excited. I have a Fissler Vitavit Premium 10 Qt pressure cooker. I love it! It allows me to cook proteins so quickly that I don't have to know what I'm cooking in the morning anymore to make sure that I allow enough time for long cook times.
A lot of my friends have gotten into pressure cooking lately. Most of them use the Instant Pot. After much research, so much so that I thought my head was going to explode, we ended up with the Fissler Vitavit. We went for the 10 Qt pressure cooker in hopes that I'll be able to pressure can small batches of things. You can always cook smaller amounts in a larger pressure cooker, but you can't always cook larger in a smaller pressure cooker as you can only fill it 1/2 - 2/3 full depending on what you're cooking.
America's Test Kitchen's
review on pressure cookers is what sealed the deal on the Fissler brand. There were other great reviews out there, but ATK's review convinced hubby that this is the one for us. (I had asked him to pick, as my head was spinning in trying to decide.) We ended up buying it on eBay and it looked like it hadn't been used more than a couple of times, if that, by the time we got it. God really blessed us with a great deal on a top of the line pressure cooker.
Last night's dinner was a pressure cooker meal. My second pressure cooker meal ever. So I'm still learning. One of the things that I do when I'm learning on how to cook using a new method or a new protein, I Google it. I searched for recipes for both ideas on the recipe and ideas on how to do something. My favorite way of cooking is not following a recipe but using a recipe to get my thinking juices going. So that is what I did to make the BBQ pork.
First things first. I put the pressure cooker on the heat for a couple of minutes to heat up the pan. Then only after the pan was heated, I added Red Palm Oil. While all of this is going on, I start working on the pork roast.
As reminded in the
Julie and Julia movie, it is best to
dry meat before searing as it allows for a better crust to be made. As Chef Anne Burrell says all the time,
"Brown food really tastes good!" So drying the meat is very important step. I used paper towels.
I then cut the roast into chunks to speed cooking. The last time I used the pressure cooker, I cooked the pork roast whole, which is great for serving a pretty roast. I was planning on pulling this pork before serving, so I took the faster cook route of cutting up the roast.
In looking at the recipes online, I wasn't really happy with one recipe, so after reading multiple recipes, I landed on this.
RUB
1 tbsp Onion granules (yes, I see that I mis-spelled on my spice containers...oops)
1 tsp Garlic granules
1 tsp Smoked paprika, hot (I wish I wrote this down last night...this morning, I'm starting to wonder if I did 2 tsp.)
Salt (be generous with this...under salted meat doesn't taste good and the other spices don't taste as flavorful either. I didn't measure this out, but I imagine it was at least 2 tsp worth...maybe more. I use Himalayan pink salt)
Pepper
I coated the pork with the rub till it was covered completely. Then seared them on all sides to get a nice brown crust.
BBQ SAUCE
While the pork was searing, I prepared the rest of the recipe.
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1/2 cup water
1 Bay Leaf (Edit: I forgot to include the bay leaf in my original post.)
A word on the BBQ sauce. I used G Hughes Smokehouse Sugar Free BBQ Sauce, Hickory Flavored. It is the best sugar free BBQ sauce that is hubby approved, however, it isn't on plan with Trim Healthy Mama as it is sweetened with sucralose. It is one of my Drive Thru Sue short cuts that was purchased pre-THM that I will use up and then will re-evaluate what I will do. We found this sauce at Bulk Nation.
After the pork was brown on all sides, I added the above BBQ sauce mixture, and made sure all of the pieces were covered with sauce. Then I got the pressure cooker covered and up to pressure on setting 2 for high pressure.
TIME
The recipes that I referenced they talked about cooking it for an hour at pressure. Since I cut the pieces into chunks, I thought that I'd try 40 minutes. According to PorkBeInspired.com
site, the roast would be done at 145-160 degrees. Well after 40 minutes, my roast was 202 degrees. So, next time I'm going to shave off some more time. The meat was pull apart delicious.
After cooking, I let the roast rest for 5-10 minutes and then I pulled it using two forks right in the BBQ sauce mixture.
Almond Green Beans
I served the pulled BBQ pork with sauteed fresh green beans. I used red palm oil as the fat and heated the pan and fat up just as I had before adding the pork.
After rinsing the beans, I trimmed each end. (My guinea pigs love this...so I gave them all the end pieces.)
Diced two garlic cloves
Almond slices
Sauteed the green beans first, then added the garlic cloves. Be sure to not burn the garlic cloves. When my pan was getting dry, I added a bit of water and that saved my cloves from getting burned and steamed the green beans too. Near the end, I added the almond slices. Toss then serve.
STARS
Least to say, dinner was five stars for both hubby and me. Which means that we not only liked it, we loved it and want it again in the future.
