Save Money Make Money: Episode 11

Concept 11: Use of Pressure Cooker in Your Kitchen

The invention of pressure cooker as a cooking gadget in your kitchen is pretty old now. However, a large numbers of households all over the world do not put it to its best use and thus deprive themselves of a good chunk of savings. Besides, there are other benefits too.

Use of pressure cooker saves times and therefore, saves the expenditure on cooking fuel or electric power. It takes on an average around 53% less time to cook in a pressure cooker when compared to open pot cooking. This takes into account the time required to bring the cooker to full pressure as well as the time during which the food is cooked under full pressure. The longer an item takes to cook, the greater is the time saved through pressure cooking.

Here are some examples of time saved on cooking certain basic food items. The time taken to cook around 1.8 kilograms of potatoes in an open pot is around 47 minutes whereas the cooking time for it in a pressure cooker is around 16 minutes giving you 31 minutes saving in time or in terms of percentage of time saved, it is 66%. For cooking 900 grams of rice, these figures are approximately 33 minutes, 14 minutes, 19 minutes and 58%. For cooking 2.5 kilograms of mutton they will be approximately: 100 minutes, 26 minutes, 74 minutes and 74%.

Because you cook faster in a pressure cooker, you save fuel or electric power and therefore money. A family can save at least half of cooking gas or electricity, it would otherwise need, by using a pressure cooker to cook daily meals. The fuel or electricity prices are constantly rising and the supply may also be erratic at many places, this saving is an advantage one can ill afford to ignore.

The beauty of a pressure cooker is that you can cook a number of dishes simultaneously at a time in a pressure cooker thus further reducing the time taken and increase in the savings per dish cooked. For non-vegetarians it provides additional savings because even the tough cuts of meat also get cooked in minutes in pressure cooking. So, they can by even tough cuts of meat instead of only choice cuts which are normally more expensive. From the point of view of nutrition or taste, the tough cuts of meat are no way inferior to the choice cuts.

In addition to savings in time and in your expenses on cooking fuel and electricity, pressure cooking is healthier since it retains nutritive elements of food, it improves taste and it is fully hygienic. One more advantage is that you can use pressure cooker as a sterilizer. Pressure cooker operates at a steam temperature of 121 degrees Celsius which is also recommended for sterilization of bandages, babies' feeding bottles, injection syringes and host of other items that require 100% germ free condition.

Also refer: (Home Page for All Home Tips) http://home-tips-tricks.blogspot.com/