My mother used a pressure-cooker a couple of times a year to steam artichokes. It made a loud hissing sound and the pressure indicator knob jangled at a furious, nerve-grinding rate as steamed poured out. It was effective in cooking the artichokes, but was a casebook example of a pressure cooker that looked and acted like a culinary time bomb.
I wasn’t opposed to using a pressure cooker, but I’d heard enough stories about exploding lids and bad steam burns to be wary enough not to purchase one. Then I got the call from a client who was dying to learn how to do short ribs during his cooking class. Short ribs, while delicious, are tough cuts of beef that benefit from low and slow cooking. They aren’t hard to make, but they do require a couple of hours to cook making them less than ideal for a cooking class or a weeknight. Not wanting to disappoint, I decided to give pressure cookers another look and was surprised by what I found.
