Fissler Vitaquick now in North America: Start Pressure Cooking!

Vitaquick pressure cookers just went up at Fissler USA. Check out all the different sizes, and start making "Gourmet Fast Food". That's the title of the recipe book that comes with every new Fissler Vitaquick. Here's a preview recipe to get you up to speed.

	Arroz con Pollo (Rice with Chicken)
	Yields: 4-6 servings Ingredients: 3 Tbsp olive oil 1 1/2 lb chicken thighs or     breasts, boneless and     skinless 1/4 cup flour 1 tsp ground paprika 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 1 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper 1 cup long-grain white rice 1/2 cup chicken stock 1/2 cup dark beer 1/2 cup tomato sauce 1/4 cup onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1/2 tsp ground cumin	Instructions: Coat the chicken in a mixture of flour, 1/2 tsp salt, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper. Cut thighs or breasts in half if pieces are very large. Heat 2 Tbsp of oil in the cooker, and brown the chicken about 2 minutes per side on medium-high heat. Remove the chicken and set aside. Add one more tablespoon of oil to the cooker and add the rice. Cook, stirring frequently, until the rice is brown and puffed. Stir in onions, garlic, 1 tsp salt, and cumin. Cook until the onions are tender. Stir in the tomato sauce, beer, and broth. Place the chicken gently on top of the rice mixture. Close and lock the lid in place. Heat on high until pressure builds and the indicator rod rises.  Turn down the heat when the second white ring appears on the indicator rod, and cook for 7 minutes. Turn off the heat, and release the pressure by pressing the button on the handle or by running cold water over the lid in the sink. Once all pressure is released, open the lid. Fluff the rice with a fork before serving.

Food From the Grill and Jordan Wine in the Glass

We post recipes here at Fissler Foodies so that you can make fabulous food. And when you go to the effort to cook a great meal, it's nice to complement it with a great wine. We discovered some great wine recently when we attended Jordan Winery's 40th anniversary party. And when we explored Jordan's website we found great recipes!

Jordan makes only two wines: a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay. I usually don't like Chardonnay but this one was dry and not overly oaky, characteristics that made it transcend the typical California chardonnay. The Cab was fantastic. I know good wine when I taste it, thought I'm not a wine expert so I'm going to quote a few words from the winemaker that definitely applied to my experience: "smooth, approachable, a spectrum of fruit flavors...interwoven with a hint of spicy oak".

The recipe section of Jordan's website is especially helpful for people like me who appreciate good wine yet don't have special expertise, because the recipes are paired with wine suggestions. So, if you've got a good red wine, like their 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, they've got some great grilling recipes, like Grilled Japanese Eggplant with Radicchio and Endive and Grilled Hanger Steak. If you don't have a barbecue grill, you can substitute a grill pan like the Fissler Solea frypan which has an innovative interior grilling surface called Novogrill.

Fissler Solea Frypan

Comedians Ben Gleib and Ben Morrison seen at the Jordan Winery party

Hanger steak from the Jordan Winery website. Lots of gorgeous "food porn" like this, at the site.

More grilled steak, at the Jordan Winery 40th anniversary party!

Fissler and the Voltaggio Brothers

One of the best things about working with Fissler cookware is the opportunity, once a year, to visit the International Home + Housewares Show and talk with other people who love our cookware. We spend a whole week talking about cooking, showing cooking products, and having chefs demonstrate cooking - with delicious edible results.  

This year we were fortunate enough to have FOUR talented chefs grace our demonstration area, dazzling us with their cooking knowledge, style, and personalities! They have been kind enough to share some of their phenomenal recipes with us, which we will in turn share with you, starting with the first two chefs we had the pleasure of working with.

Bryan and Michael chatting while cooking

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, or are a foodie faker (do you just pretend to watch the Cooking Channel, people??), you should be familiar with Bryan and Michael Voltaggio. Both men competed on Season six Bravo's Top Chef. Bryan is the "nice" one, Michael is the "dirty" one; and women of all ages find one or the other (or in many cases both) of them hot for a multitude of reasons. And if running their own restaurants (Bryan's VOLT in Maryland and Michael's ink in Los Angeles) wasn't keeping them busy enough, they agreed to come demonstrate for us for a couple of days!

Can you tell what sort of family secrets they are sharing?

So, without further ado, let us share with you the Voltaggio brothers' Memphis Style Ribs and BBQ Baked Nuts!

 MEMPHIS STYLE RIBS

Ingredients for Dry Rub Seasoning

3 2/3 cups (730 grams) sugar

6 oz (170 grams) Smoken Maldon salt

4.95 oz (140 grams) Aleppo pepper

3.88 oz (110 grams) Smoked paprika

2.82 oz (80 grams) Onion powder

2.12 oz (60 grams) Ground black pepper

Ingredients for Braising Liquid/Mop

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 cup spiced ketchup

1 tsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp of prepared dry rub seasoning

2 slabs pork ribs, approximately 3/4 pounds each

Equipment

Fissler Vitaquick 4 Liter Pressure Pan

Smoking Gun and Applewood chips

• Combine all of the ingredients for the dry rub seasoning
• Mix water, ketchup and 2 Tbsp of the dry rub seasoning together to make your braising liquid. Set the remaining dry rub aside to season the ribs with after cooking.
• Place the ribs bone side down in a Vitaquick pressure cooker, place the braising liquid in the pressure cooker.
• Close and secure the pressure lid until the red indicator in handle turns green. Cook on high heat until 2 indicator rods are visible. 
• Lower the heat to low and maintain pressure for 15 minutes.
• Turn off heat and let the pressure naturally release for approximately 10 minutes. 
• Once all the pressure is released, slide open the pressure lid and carefully remove the ribs. Place in a shallow casserole and baste with the braising liquid/mop generously using a brush. 
• Cover the casserole with plastic wrap. 
• Using a smoking gun with apple wood chips, smoke the ribs twice. There should be generous smoke flavor to the meat.
• Baste again with the mop. Finally, dust the ribs with the remaining dry rub seasoning and serve.

Top Chefs Love Fissler - and we love them!!

BBQ "BAKED" NUTS

Ingredients

3 cups water

1 cup (150 grams) shelled hazelnuts, raw

1 1/4 tsp (7.5 grams) salt

2 1/4 tsp (14 grams) prepared dry rub seasoning

1/4 cup (56 grams) whole unsalted butter

1 cup (200 grams) whole diced tomatoes

2 Tbsp (30 grams) sorghum molasses

2 1/4 oz (65 grams) Newsom's bacon, diced

2.2 oz (62 grams) onion, minced

Equipment

Fissler 4.5 liter pressure cooker

• Combine the water, salt and hazelnuts in a large bowl and refrigerate overnight.
• Place the soaked hazelnuts with the water in the Vitaquick pressure cooker.
• Close and secure the pressure lid until the red indicator in the handle turns green. Cook on high heat until 2 indicator rods are visible.
• Lower the heat to low and maintain pressure for 30 minutes.
• Turn off heat and let the pressure naturally release in order to keep the hazelnuts whole. 
• Once all the pressure is released, slide open the pressure lid, remove the nuts, and let cool until ready to use. Reserve the cooking liquid.
• In a small pan start rendering the bacon until the meat crisps and the fat starts rendering out. Add the onion and sweat until translucent. Continue to cook until the onion almost starts to caramelize. Add the sorghum molasses and cook until it begins to have a lazy bubble; the sugars will lightly caramelize, be careful not to burn as it will make the dish bitter.
• This step should only take 1-2 minutes. Add the tomato and cook until almost dry (au-sec). 
• Add the hazelnut cooking liquid and the 4 grams of the dry rub seasoning.
• Reduce the liquid by half. Add the hazelnuts and reheat until they are glazed with the sauce.

The Voltaggio brothers, holding a plate of their delicious ribs

Fissler is a Winner!!!

The Fissler Pressure Pan was selected as the Best Eco-Friendly Kitchen Product in the About.com Reader's Choice Awards! Read the About.com review of the Pressure Pan here. Many thanks to you, the Fissler Foodies, for voting for Fissler. Keep on saving the planet by saving energy when you cook in a pressure cooker!

Fissler Pressure Cooker a finalist at About.com! You can vote!

Yes Fissler Foodies: you can vote on your favorite eco-friendly kitchen product. And we know it's the Fissler Blue Point Pressure Cooker! Go to About.com to participate in the About.com Reader's Choice Awards for 2012. Why are Fissler Blue Point Pressure Cookers eco-friendly? Because pressure cookers save energy by reducing cooking time. And the thick CookStar base found on Fissler Blue Point pressure cookers retains more heat than thinner bases found on other brands. That means that even less fuel and energy is required for cooking. Thanks for voting!

Party Food for New Year's Eve and beyond, from Valerie Aikman-Smith's "Salt"

We all use salt in our cooking, but how often have you thought creatively about salt? Salt is more than just, well, salty. In the cookbook Salt: Cooking with the World's Favorite Seasoning, Valerie Aikman-Smith presents salt beyond the shaker, using unusual salts (like the sel gris and truffle salt called for below) in recipes that extend to cocktails and desserts as well as entrees and appetizers.

Valerie Aikman-Smith is a food stylist and writer based in Los Angeles. She trained in her native Scotland and started her cooking career working at Greens in San Francisco and the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Valerie then turned to food styling for film, television, commericials, and print. Valerie's talents mean that the photographs (by Jonathan Gregson) in this cookbook are as gorgeous as the recipes are delicious.

For the Fissler Foodies' New Year's Eve party we are planning to serve Valerie's Corsican Fried Olives and Gold Potato Crisps with Truffle Salt. For both of these recipes we will use the Fissler Pressure Pan Set, which comes with a deep fry basket, making it very easy to lift the crisps and olives out of the hot oil.

Corsican Fried Olives

Recipe courtesy of Valerie Aikman-Smith

This is a recipe that you end up sharing with all your friends because they are so divine. One bite: that’s all it takes. It’s fun to use both black and green olives.

40 pitted medium to large green and black olives

4 oz/115g goats cheese at room temperature

1 teaspoons herbes de Provence

Zest of 1 orange

1 egg

1 tablespoon of flour

1 cup/2oz/56g of panko or coarse breadcrumbs

2 cups/16fl oz/500ml of vegetable oil.

Sel de Gris to sprinkle

You will need a pastry bag with a small nozzle.

Deep frying thermometer

In a bowl mix together the goats cheese, herbs and orange zest until smooth.  Put the cheese mixture in the pastry bag and set aside.

Lightly beat the egg in a small bowl and set aside.  Put the flour on a small plate and the breadcrumbs on another.

Take the pastry bag and pipe each olive until full with the cheese mixture.

Dip each olive in the flour, then the egg and toss in the breadcrumbs until well coated.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan until the oil reaches 350F/180C on a deep frying thermometer. If you don’t have a deep frying thermometer test the oil by dropping a breadcrumb in, it should turn golden brown in about 20 seconds.

Fry the olives in batches until crispy and golden brown about a minute.  Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle generously with the sel de gris and serve.

*Panko are coarse Japanese breadcrumbs but if you can’t find them use regular.

Gold potato crisps with truffle salt

Recipe by courtesy of Valerie Aikman-Smith

Potatoes, truffles and salt are a match made in heaven.  The real trick to this recipe is to slice the potatoes wafer thin: a mandolin is a good tool for this.  Use a gold potato like Yukon Gold or Yellow Finn.

6 small/1lb/500g Yukon Gold potatoes

Vegetable oil to fry

Truffle salt

Mandolin

Deep Fat fryer

Wash and dry the potatoes.

Thinly slice the potatoes and put to one side.

Heat the oil in the fryer until it reaches 350F/180C.

Fry the potato slices in batches.  Drain the potatoes on paper towels.

Place the drained potato crisps in a bowl and sprinkle with the truffle salt, toss and serve.

To test if the oil is hot enough, drop a breadcrumb into the oil and it should turn golden brown in about 20 seconds.

Thanksgiving Turkey in Fissler’s Blue Point Pressure Cooker

Did you cook your Thanksgiving turkey in the oven? That’s what I did every year for a decade. This year, our oven was on the fritz and I was worried that the entire Thanksgiving dinner could be ruined if it failed in the middle of cooking. I have often heard that meat cooked in a pressure cooker is incredibly tender, so I decided to take a risk and make the turkey on the stove-top. Eventually, I made every dish on the stove and avoided the oven all together.

Turkey Recipe:

1 turkey

Scoops of stuffing to fill the cavity

4 cans chicken broth

The 12 lb turkey didn’t fit into my 6L Fissler Blue Point Pressure Cooker whole. No problem! I used my Fissler Profession Boning Knife to take off the sides from the leg through to the wing, and cooked the turkey in 2 batches.

I put the legs and wings into the Blue Point Pressure Cooker and added 2 cups of chicken broth. The lid of the Blue Point feels very secure, and as I swiveled the top on and locked it in place, I knew there was no danger of anything going wrong (exploding is my biggest fear!) On medium heat, I cooked the legs and wings for 40 minutes. While it was cooking, I made stuffing.

The Blue Point Pressure Cooker is surprisingly quiet while cooking. When I opened the lid, much of the liquid had been absorbed into the meat and it was incredibly tender.

I stuffed the cavity of the remaining half of the turkey with stuffing made from Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing with dried Bing Cherries and cranberries, almonds and cubes of Fuyu persimmons.

I placed that into the Blue Point Pressure Cooker, added 2 cans of chicken stock and brushed the top with butter.

I cooked it on medium heat for 45 minutes. After taking the turkey (minus legs and wings) out, there were enough drippings in the pan to add to the Pumpkin Sage Gravy. The turkey was deep honey brown and looked great! I was surprised that pressure cooking a turkey added as much color as it did. Besides being in pieces, it looked and smelled like a turkey right out of the oven! With a smaller turkey, whole chicken, or if I had used the 8L Blue Point Pressure Cooker (mine is 6L), I could have cooked it all at once.

The stuffing inside the turkey was much moister and more delicious than the rest of the stuffing. Next time, I might just cook all the stuffing in with the turkey. I used the turkey drippings to make Pumpkin Sage Gravy (it's incredibly delicious!) Here's what the drippings looked like:

The meal was a huge success! Two out of Five diners said it was the best Thanksgiving dinner they have had and we all agreed that it was the best turkey I have ever cooked.

Julia Child's Braised Red Cabbage!

It's the time of year for hearty winter vegetables, especially those in the cabbage family. Red cabbage is a favorite of mine, but the traditional method, like the one in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", calls for five hours of cooking time. I just don't have that kind of time so I figured that this recipe was a perfect candidate for converting to the speedy pressure cooker. Plus, here in Southern California, it doesn't really get very cold, so heating up the kitchen for five hours is more stifling than cozy. I also cut back the calories from the original recipe by leaving out the bacon but if you want to leave it in, go here for the instructions from the original recipe. Here's my pressure cooked revision of Chou Rouge a la Limousine (Braised Red Cabbage with Red Wine and Chestnuts).

1 carrot thinly sliced
1 medium onion sliced
2 T butter
1 medium head red cabbage, quartered and thinly sliced
1 tart apple cubed
2 cloves garlic crushed
2 bay leaves
6 cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper
2 cups red wine (as Julia says, "good, young red wine: Bordeaux, Macon, Chianti)
2 cups stock (you can use any type: veggie, chicken, beef)
approximately a dozen peeled, cooked chestnuts cut in half or quarters (You may be able to find these canned or jarred)

Using a pressure cooker without the lid, saute the onions and carrots in butter for about ten minutes on medium heat. Add cabbage and continue stirring and cooking for ten minutes. Add everything but the chestnuts and bring to a simmer (this is the step shown in the photo). Place pressure lid on and bring to high pressure. Lower heat but maintain high pressure. Cook for one hour. Release pressure. Add chestnuts, simmer for five to ten minutes. Check flavor and add more salt to taste. If you feel it needs a touch more acidity add a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Great with sausages, turkey, mashed potatoes or any old-fashioned winter meals.

Pumpkin and Meat Stew Recipe cooked in the Pressure Cooker

This is a delicious recipe that I found on Fissler's International newsletter. There's nothing better than savory pumpkin dishes when the season is right. They are hearty, inexpensive, so satisfying and the color is gorgeous!

You can make this in any Fissler Blue Point Pressure Cooker and adjust the recipe to fit the size of your pot. This recipe fits great in my 6.0 L / 6.4 qt pot. The Blue Point Pressure cookers are perfect for making soft, melt-in-your-mouth pumpkin dishes- perfect for the harvest season!

Ingredients:

1 Hokkaido squash, ie medium-sized pumpkin (1–1.2 kg/2–21/2 lb)

1 tbsp peanut oil, 250 g
9 oz minced pork

1 tsp salt, 5 tbsp soy sauce

8 tbsp sweet rice wine (mirin)

200 ml/7 fl oz water

1 tbsp cornflour

1–2 tbsp water

Preparation time: 45 min

Instructions:

Cut the squash in half and cut off the stalk. Remove the filaments and seeds, rinse and pat dry. Cut the squash into 3–4 cm/11/4–11/2 in chunks.

Heat the peanut oil in the pressure cooker, add the minced pork and fry while stirring to prevent it from sticking together. Add the chunks of squash and fry briefly. Season with salt, soy sauce and rice wine, then add the water.

Close the pressure cooker, following the instructions. Bring pressure up to cooking level 2 (speed setting) and heat the pan over high heat. As soon as the second ring appears, start the cooking time of about 5 minutes.

Depressurise, following the instructions, and remove the lid.

Mix together the cornflour and water and add to the squash and minced pork mixture to thicken it. Season to taste with a little salt.

Tip:

The Japanese rice wine (mirin) is only used as a seasoning while cooking. On the other hand, warm sake is drunk to accompany the food.

The Veggie Queen's e-cookbook Guides You on Your Path to Quick Pressure Cooked meals!

If you are still on the fence about the value of a pressure cooker, invest $12.95 in Jill Nussinow’s e-cookbook, The New FastFood™: The Veggie Queen™ Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30Minutes. Jill, a registered dietitian, known as The Veggie Queen™ presents all the information you need to help you select a pressure cooker (size, pressure settings, lock top), the advantages of pressure cooking (speed, ease, energy savings, taste, nutrition) and of course, dozens and dozens of delicious recipes.

I was especially pleased to find instructions on pressure cooking some unusual grains such as the Ethiopian grain teff and Italian farro. I think my favorite section though, is the dessert chapter. The pressure cooker is usually not the first kitchen tool you think of for dessert, but you would be amazed at the sweet treats that it can produce. Jill includes ten dessert recipes that are totally satisfying yet super healthy because of the grains and fruits that are their foundation.

There are some intriguing ideas presented here on why pressure cookers are more popular in Europe and why some of the best pressure cookers are manufactured there. Jill presents the theory that the availability of fast food and processed foods in the U.S. made the speed of pressure cooking less necessary. Europeans, without those “conveniences” took to pressure cooking more readily, to solve the problem of getting meals on the table quickly. And because pressure cooking was always more popular there, European cookers were manufactured to higher standards, with better materials (steel instead of aluminum) and with more innovations (spring valves instead of “jigglers” to release pressure). German pressure cookers by Fissler, such as Fissler’s Blue Point, are a good example.

So, visit Jill’s website (where you will find some preview recipes) and get a copy of The New Fast Food™ and then find the right pressure cooker from Fissler!

Is time spent in the kitchen, hard on your feet and legs? WellnessMats to the rescue!

The Fissler Foodies spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Not because we have to, but because we love to. We cook to live and we live to cook. Sometimes we pull out the portable CookStar Induction Pro and cook with friends at the dining table. But even that means prep time standing on the hard kitchen floor. When we were given a WellnessMat recently we wondered why we hadn't thought of getting one before. WellnessMats are polyurethane mats that are medically proven to promote proper circulation and reduce fatigue. 

We are kind of into the technical side of things, so we rather enjoyed reading this explanation of why WellnessMats work the way they do: "WellnessMats feature a remarkably elastomeric and resilient core, that offers 50% more cushioning than other mats in the category, making them dramatically different from other anti-fatigue mats on the market today. Advanced Polyurethane Technology (APT) allows WellnessMats cushiony core to permanently bond with the abrasion, stain, and microbial resistant outer layer.  Called cross-linking, the polyurethane molecules permanently bond through a process called thermosetting.  What that means is that the mats will never delaminate and that the unmatched comfort and longevity of all WellnessMats are permanently locked into every fiber." 

Okay, thank you WellnessMats for the high tech details. What we can tell you from personal experience is that our legs and feet immediately felt better when we were standing at the counter or washing dishes. Sometimes we even walk through the kitchen just to stand on it!

You can get your own Wellness Mat through Williams Sonoma, Frontgate, Chefs and hundreds of specialty retailers across the country, as well as at the WellnessMats site. They come in different sizes, colors and surface patterns to match your kitchen and your cookware.

Real Madrid celebrates Spain in Los Angeles with chef Jose Andres at SLS Hotel!

One of the perks of being a Fissler Foodie in Los Angeles is getting invited to fancy foodie events. Yes, it can be hard to tear us away from our own kitchens, but when it involves a special appearance by the world champion soccer team and food from one of the best chefs on the planet, we’re willing to put away the pressure cooker for a night. On Monday we attended a fantastic party at the SLS hotel given by The Spanish Tourist Office to celebrate Spain and particularly the capital, Madrid. MC Drew Carey introduced the guests of honor; the incredible athletes of Real Madrid, winners of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Team members, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Iker Casillas, and Karim Benzema mingled with athletic icons from other sports, like Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece, Lindsey Berg, Kim Glass, Kenneth Faried and Jeff Adrien. And it wouldn’t be a party in LA without Hollywood film stars like Gabrielle Union, Camilla Belle, Olivier Martinez, Jessie Williams and Scotty Granger who were joined by Spanish counterparts including Paz Vega, Jordi Molla and Elsa Pataky. You can see a sweet video of Real Madrid players talking about what they love about the home city of their team at: www.ineedspain.com and at 1:05 they start to talk about Spanish food, especially tapas! So, of course, tapas was the food we celebrated with that night. Jose Andres, the James Beard award winning Spanish chef of Bazaar, the restaurant at the SLS hotel, created an incredible array of tapas, from foie gras cotton candy, manchego cheese, gazpacho, jamón con tomate, tortilla española, huge pans of paella and luscious apricot flan and chocolate lace lollipops for dessert. If you want to create tapas at home check out one of Jose Andres’ cookbooks. He has written several cookbooks including the companion to the PBS series, Made in Spain: Spanish Dishes for the American Kitchen and Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America. We ended the night with a glass of cava (the Spanish bubbly) and a toast to Spain for its fabulous food and a culture that celebrates the pleasure in life.

Photos courtesy of Thomas Raab Photography.