What's For Supper?

Chicken Carnitas!  Made in my Instant Pot!

This is obviously just the chicken, but the chicken is kind of the main thing...

Disclaimer:  This post is not so much an endorsement for the recipe I used (because I adapted it), but rather it's all about how excited I am to have cooked chicken in my Instant Pot and recognizing what a great tool it is for that purpose.

I sort of followed this recipe at Little Spice Jar, using what I had and not worrying much about what I didn't have.  I didn't have fresh cilantro and I forgot to add dried cilantro where it was called for. I also completely forgot the garlic - and I have plenty of fresh garlic.  Sigh.  I didn't have any chipotle pepper (do not care for chipotle anything), and instead of adobo sauce, I just sprinkled some dry adobo seasoning mix in the dry rub I coated the chicken with before searing.

Also...  to be honest, I didn't sear the chicken in the Instant Pot.  I've successfully seared something once, but since then I've read that searing can cause the Pot to not want to go into pressure mode (or something like that) and the inner pot may have to be cooled before continuing.  I didn't want to waste the time finding out if that might happen on my second searing attempt, so I just seared the chicken breasts in a skillet.

Now for the Chipotle sauce.  I've already said I'm not a chipotle person.  Well...  I'm also not a big fan of mayonnaise.  It was really tempting to just forgo this, but let me encourage anyone who might be interested in trying this recipe but is possibly turned off by this sauce --- try it.  Or try making it in a way that you might like it.  For example...  in place of the chipotle pepper and adobo sauce, I just added maybe 2 -3 teaspoons of dry adobo seasoning mix.  And I sprinkled in a little black pepper before whisking.   My verdict after eating a carnita:  the sauce makes this.  Yep.  I, who doesn't particularly care for mayo, said that. Of course, if I'd had chipotle pepper and adobo sauce, I might hate this sauce.  But what I made was mild, and added just the the right amount of flavor for both my and my husband's liking.  Your mileage may vary.

The more important thing to me is how pumped I am to now have a bunch of shredded chicken to add to other recipes.  Frankly, I'm excited at the thought of making shredded or chopped chicken from now on from chicken cooked in my Instant Pot.  

If I subtract the time spent searing the chicken before cooking, I'm thinking it wouldn't take more than 30 minutes to cook up a batch of chicken (in this case 6 chicken breasts).  But even if it takes longer, I'm okay with that, because I love that I can walk away from my Instant Pot and just let it do its thing.  And it is so much easier and cleaner to cook the chicken in this pot than in the microwave - which is how I usually cook chicken before shredding or chopping it for a recipe. And we won't enumerate how many times I've discovered cold chicken breasts in the microwave in the morning because the night before I walked away to let the microwave do its thing, only to get busy and completely forget about it.  😏 

Happy Cook here - happy to have another success in my Instant Pot experience.  

And browsing the Little Spice Jar website, I'm thinking I'm going to have to try their Garlic Butter Skillet Steak and Shrimp.  Mmmmm

Instant pot - a review...

I thought I'd give a plug for a new kitchen gadget I recently received.   My MIL gave me an Instant Pot as an early Christmas gift!

I only recently started paying attention to this trend of a multi-type cooker, even though they've been around for a while.  Seriously, less than a year ago I can honestly say I'd never even heard of the Instant Pot.   I'm also not normally a kitchen gadget person, but over the last few months I've grown increasingly curious and interested in this cooker, so I was kind of excited when my MIL asked if I'd like one for Christmas.  And then she went ahead and gave it to me just a couple of weeks ago.  Whoo hoo!

So far I've only cooked macaroni, Basmati brown rice, baked potatoes and last night I made my first real meal in it.    I made Beef Bourguignon from the book, The Authorized Collection - Instant Pot Weeknight Meals, and it was pretty good!

I'll be honest...  the Instant Pot doesn't really cook a meal any faster than using regular pots and pans, BUT what it does do is allow you to saute and then cook in the same pot, and then by closing it up and putting the whole thing under pressure, I find I'm completely content to go about my business doing something else without the temptation to check on it, or stir it, or even sneak a taste.  

Now, that might be a turn off to some, but I find it surprisingly easy to do.  And while, again, it doesn't cook the meal any faster, it feels (to me) a little faster since I'm not hovering over it waiting for my meal to finish, or making sure it doesn't burn while it's cooking.  

While my review might be a little premature with my limited cooking experience with my Instant Pot, at the moment I'm kind of loving it.

My criticisms:  

• The book isn't the most thorough thing I've ever read.  And at least once, the "authorized" cookbook contradicted itself.   For example, in a recipe the instructions for cooking pasta said to use the "quick release" to vent the steam (and lower the pressure more quickly).  It refers you to page 4 to read how to do this, but on page 4, it tells you that the quick release feature is not suitable for starchy foods (as "food content may splatter out from the steam release" - presumably clogging the vent).

• An example of where it's not thorough, is each recipe tells you to set the time for cooking, but it doesn't tell you what button to push to do this. There is no "cook time" button.  After pushing a few different things, I was able to figure it out, but it made me nervous the first time to press buttons thinking that this thing was working its way to being under pressure.  I didn't know how much time I had to figure it out.  Now, I'm not so nervous, but that first time I was a little worried and a bit annoyed that it wasn't more intuitive or explained thoroughly.

All that said, with all the helps online, and cookbooks available,  I think this tool will be fairly easy to master.  I'm looking forward to discovering more yummy food I can cook in it.

If you have someone on your Christmas Shopping list who loves gadgets, but doesn't have one of these yet, it would make a great gift.  If you don't know if they'd want one, ask.  I sure didn't feel let down knowing a month early what I'd be getting.   Getting it a month early was just icing on the cake.  Or maybe I should say...  sauce in the pot! 

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