Well count me in as someone who's terrified of pressure cookers. I've never even seen one, but just the thought makes me shudder. My husband talks about his mom making pressure cookers full of this and that, but I just don't trust them. I used to work at Mass General Hospital back when I was an Operating Room Tech and I had to do a rotation in the burn unit. Just too horrible to even put into words. And having given myself a very bad steam burn just a few months ago, I "feel" your pain!!! Thankfully you weren't burned more seriously or, as you said, injured your eyes!! I hope the 3rd degree burns weren't too extensive. Oh I don't even want to think about it! Take care and heal up! And since I work for lawyers now, I agree - report this and contact a lawyer. You certainly would have more than a "nuisance" suit - burns are nothing to dismiss casually. All the best and kudos to your daughter!! She might just make a grand doctor if she can keep her cool like that! Lisa

A lot of folks flying around the airport but no one is landing. No dispute on the basic facts of what temperatures certain substances (water, oil) vaporize or explode. But no one is accounting for the dynamics of the process, which are explained in Colonel Sanders patent that he took out on his pressure frying method for cooking chicken (U.S. Patent No. 3,245,800). What happens when you apply heat to a mixture of liquids having different boiling temperatures in a closed environment with a small orifice vent (i.e., a stovetop pressure cooker)? What happens when you distill a mixture of liquids having different boiling points? Here's what happens. Assuming you are applying enough heat to the liquid mixture to reach the boiling points, each liquid will boil off in order of their boiling points, lowest first to highest last. More importantly, the temperature of the entire mixture of boiling liquids and vapors within the closed environment will remain at the equilibrium temperature of the lowest boiling liquid until ALL of the lowest boiling liquid is vaporized out of the system. At that point the temperature of the enclosed liquid and vapor system will begin to rise until it reaches the equilibrium boiling point for the next-highest boiling liquid. In our chicken frying example, the two most important liquids are the water contained in the chicken and its coating, and the frying oil. Water boils at 212 F at atmospheric temperature, and at about 250 F at 15 psi, the pressure used by Colonel Sanders with his old Mirro pressure cookers. Oil boils at some ungodly high temperature, one obviously dangerous, but one that will never be reached in the pressure cooker unless and until ALL of the water in the chicken and its coating are vaporized and vented out the pressure cooker's vent. But in order to vaporize all of the water in the chicken, you will have to cook it for a good bit longer than the eight to ten minutes the Colonel used to cook his chicken. As long as there is any water remaining in the chicken (and with the cooking times involved here, there always will be), that water will continuously vaporize out of the chicken and maintain the pressure cooker at 250 F and 15 PSI. The danger comes in when the process is neglected. If the heat is left on long enough, and all the water is driven out of the chicken and vented to the atmosphere, the temperature inside the pressure cooker will begin to rise until it reaches the equilibrium boiling point of the next-highest boiling liquid, the oil, at 15 PSI. If that happens, look out. It is because of the possibility of neglect leading to the complete evacuation of water from the cooker that the stovetop pressure cooker manufacturers have uniformly regarded pressure frying in their equipment as unsafe. Bottom line - it is possible to pressure fry chicken in a stovetop pressure cooker, but the process has to be controlled and monitored carefully so that you never approach the point where all of the water is removed from the chicken (the chicken would be long past ruined by that point anyway). The safety of the process depends entirely on the operator. If there is any question of whether the chef has sufficient skill and attention span to monitor and control the process (and for the pressure cooker manufacturers, they just cannot presume that all their customers do), it's just much safer to use a purpose-made pressure fryer, expensive as they are.

I am not an expert. I do not have a mulit-cooker. High pressure for cooking is 12 psi. A stove-top one can get to 15 psi. All that means is that an electric device takes longer to cook the food but it's measured in minutes. Not a deal breaker but be aware that using recipes from other sources will mean adding time. I have not come across an electric PC that reaches 15 psi. You need to fill the inner pot at least 1/5 full to use it. It may not be able to PC small amounts. I don't know if the max and min or marked on the pot, though. Stews will need 5-6 cups of liquid to prevent burning. Looks like you you 19 cups of volume available for foods that don't expand while cooking. 14 cups for those that do. From the manual: Be aware that certain foods,such as applesauce,cranberries,pearl barley, oatmeal or other cereals, split peas, noodles, macaroni, rhubarb, or spaghetti can foam, froth, sputter, and clog the pressure release device (steam vent). These foods should not be cooked in a pressure cooker. It says that you can use this to pressure can. I would not advise this since elevation plays a key role and you don't know how it would affect the amount of pressure you can achieve. I can't imagine that it holds 4 qt jars, which is the starting point for USDA recommendations. I use non-stick for certain things. I follow the guidelines and really don't worry about it. Each person needs to make that decision for themselves. I don't worry about aluminum, either, but then I eat out and use induction so I don't have the option at home.

I have all three as well. PC's are excellent timesavers--steamed artichokes in 12-14 minutes instead of 45. Excellent for quickly tenderizing cuts of meat. (Great curry dishes in 20 minutes.) And sometime this week I'm gonna make corned beef & cabbage in just a little more than an hour. And I find that I prefer osso buco made in the PC to the non-PC way. Also, with a PC I can make foolproof risotto with hardly any effort and very little time, so I end up making risotto more often. (Indeed, Kuhn Rikon markets a small PC as a 'risotto maker'.) Dutch ovens are great for unfussy cooking; starting something on the stovetop and then finishing them in a slow oven is their forte. If you like this technique, take a look at Molly Stevens' All About Braising. Great resource. I have found that since I got into PC cooking I don't use my slow cooker as much. Slow cookers are great for stews, chili, beans and other things where the timing isn't critical--but the pressure cooker is very good on beans and grains as well, in about a third the time. If you want to work more grains and beans into your menus, a pressure cooker really is worthwhile. Lorna Sass, the pressure cooker expert, has written a pressure cooker cookbook precisely aimed at vegetarians. (See the link.) If I had to give up any one of those gadgets, it would be the slow cooker. I definitely wouldn't give up my PC, and I really like the enameled cast iron Dutch ovens as well. Here is a link that might be useful: vegetarian pressure cooker cookbook