How To Make Stock In A Pressure Cooker
If you love making homemade soups or broths, then you likely make beef or chicken stock in the process, but maybe gotten frustrated because it can take hours and hours to accomplish. However, there’s a quicker and more efficient way to make stock, and this article is going to teach you how to make stock in a pressure cooker.
Besides being a much faster process, when you make stock using a pressure cooker, it turns out darker and has a richer meaty taste than stock cooked on top of the stove. That’s because the high temperatures in a pressure cooker extract more of the flavor from the bones and other stock ingredients.
For instance, making beef stock on the top of the stove is a long, drawn out tiresome process that can take 12 hours or more. But if you use a pressure cooker, it raises the boiling point of the water to more than the usual 212 degrees Fahrenheit to more than 250 degrees. With that high of a temperature, the tough tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc. of the beef will get melted down quicker and easier and release their delicious meaty flavor into your liquid in only a couple of hours instead of it being an all-day issue.
Additionally, when you use a pressure cooker to make stock, it doesn’t let any of the liquid to evaporate as it happens with stovetop cooking. You will even have more than you had at the start since it draws out the liquids from the bones and other ingredients you use to make the stock.
Recipe for Beef Stock
- Beef bones
- Onions
- Celery
- Carrots
- Thyme
- Parsley
First, you buy the amount of bones that will fit into your pressure cooker. The average amount seems to be around five pounds worth for most regular-sized cookers. You can have your butcher cut them up so they will fit. You’ll want bones with good connective tissue on them and some bits of meat to add flavor. Some people also add a little extra meat for more flavor like a piece of beef shank.
You oil the bones and roast them in a roasting pan in the oven until they turn nice and brown. Then it’s time to add the veggies and cook it all together until the veggies also brown. The timeframe varies, so be sure to watch, so they don’t burn or scorch. Once browned, put the mixture into your pressure cooker along with the fat drippings in the roasting pan, and any browned pieces sticking to the pan too for added flavor.
Next, add in water to your pressure cooker’s maximum fill line. You can then add seasonings like thyme and parsley. Then cover and put in on a high-pressure setting. You should cook it between 90 minutes and two and a half hours depending on how beefy or gelatinous you like your stock to be.
Then, depressurize the cooker, but it is best not to use the quick release switch as sometimes this has been known to cause explosive boiling, which can be dangerous, especially since stock usually forms a layer of fat on top. Then, once depressurized, you can strain out any solid material or fats. You can cool it off first to make the fat easier to skim off the top after it hardens.
Chicken Stock
Approximately a pound of bones from either raw or cooked chicken (whole chicken carcass is excellent for this)
- Chicken skin adds flavor, so put that in too if you have it
- Veggies, i.e., celery, onions, and carrots
- Thyme
- Parsley
To make it, add the bones to your cooker and add water to the maximum fill line of your cooker. You’ll need around five or six cups of water. Then it is cooked for between a half hour and 60 minutes at high-pressure setting. It all depends on how dark you like your stock. Then, just like the beef stock, you depressurize it and let it cool, then skim off the fat on top.
All in all, this is how to make stock in a pressure cooker. Enjoy.
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