The start of this book has an interesting history of pressure cooking and then spends a good bit of time explaining how pressure cooking works and what foods cook well in a pressure cooker. The information in the first two chapters is really useful if you want to understand what’s going on when you use your Instant Pot or similar device. If you just want to toss the ingredients into the electric pressure cooker and get cooking, skip the first two chapters!
The second chapter has an page listing common mistakes that electric pressure cooker users make. The six common mistakes are:
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Forgetting the sealing ring
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Forgetting to set the steam-release valve to the sealing position
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Putting quicker-cooking and slower-cooking ingredients in at the same time
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Using too much liquid
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Using too little liquid
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Not using an insert
Now that I’ve had my Instant Pot for a while, I’ll admit to having been bitten by all of these mistakes. I’m still battling with the correct amounts of liquid. I’m guessing the nature of the ingredients, the ambient humidity, and how dry or moist the particular ingredients are when I actually cook them are all factors. I would like things to be more science than art when it comes to cooking, especially when using a device like my Instant Pot, but I think that’s simply a dream.
Honestly, it might not be a bad idea to make a copy of this page and keep it near your electric pressure cooker as a reminder of what might go wrong. It’s a cheap form of insurance towards making the best meals possible!
As I dug into the recipes, I noted that the 5-Ingredients name was a bit of a misnomer. Let’s face it, every cookbook that purports to use X-number of ingredients cheats. I’m always surprised. Then again, it’s exactly the reason why I haven’t written any X-Ingredient recipes. It’s just too hard to stay within some arbitrary limit. I do have a 10-Ingredient Or Less project underway, but it’s proving much harder than I anticipated. The author does have a list of ingredients that don’t count on page 21. She sneakily calls them Basic Essential Ingredients. Somehow I skipped this page as I was rushing to get into the recipes. If I’d read the list carefully I would’ve saved myself the grief of counting ingredients and being disappointed.
There’s nothing in the Basic Essential Ingredients that are out of the ordinary. The list contains things like cooking oil, butter, salt, pepper, vanilla extract, stock (which I would call broth…but whatever), garlic, onions, and flour. I guess if anything, I would insist that the last three be counted in the ingredient list, but I’m sure the author and publisher wanted to stick with that 5-Ingredients title, instead of inflating it to 6-Ingredients.
Just be aware that these recipes don’t have exactly five or fewer ingredients, since there are a number of things that don’t count.
Normally I read the introduction and foreword to every book. When I’m reading an ebook though, I sometimes jump around and miss those until later in my reading process. This book was a great example. If I’d read the foreword I would’ve understood why so many of the recipes seemed to have a Latino bent. The author grew up in Venezuela! That explains why almost two-thirds of the breakfast recipes read like something from a South American restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, they all look amazing, and the recipes I’ve tried have turned out great. But be aware that there are going to be ingredients and flavors that have a distinctly Latino component. If your family doesn’t like spicier foods, be prepared to make substitutions or steer clear of those recipes.
Interestingly, the format of the recipes intrigued me, with the ingredients on the right-hand side while the directions and other material are on the left. I’m so used to ingredients above the directions that I was surprised to see this layout. Once I started using the recipes I really liked it. I could collect my ingredients and read the notes below them and then mentally set them aside. When I was in the cooking phase I was able to focus on the directions without having to visually skip the ingredients. Honestly, it’s a format I’m thinking about using for my recipes on the blog and in my cookbooks.
Many of the recipes also have options and variations listed under the ingredients. I found the location to be really convenient, unlike the more traditional approach of putting these below the entire recipe. I found myself considering these options while I was collecting the ingredients or making my shopping list. In my paper version of the book I highlighted the ideas that I liked and in my ebook version I attached notes to the recipes. I discovered that the notes were somewhat hard to notice in the ebook version, but the highlighting worked wonderfully in my physical book. And to answer the obvious question…”yes, I have two copies of this book”. I’ve got a bad habit of doing that, but I use my cookbooks in different ways…so having different formats is helpful. Plus I tend to buy the cheapest used copies I can find on Amazon, so I’m not spending a fortune on cookbooks. No matter what my wife says!
There are loads of recipes from the sections on Sides, Soups, and Main Meals that intrigued me. I’ve made a reasonable number of them, and as I mentioned before, they all turned out well. The quantities and cook times are extremely accurate. As in all recipes, the prep times are way off. It always takes me much longer to prep a recipe than cookbooks suggest. Be forewarned this cookbook is no exception. If it says the prep time will take 10 minutes…I’d recommend being prepared for double that. Also remember that the cook time for an electric pressure cooker is comprised of three components:
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Coming to pressure
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Actual cooking
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Releasing the pressure
In all the Instant Pot cookbooks I’ve seen, the coming to pressure phase seems to be ignored. That’s an important oversight, since it can take up to 20 minutes for that phase of the cooking. Just remember that everything takes longer than you expect and even the recipe developers seem to fail in that regard. It’s not a reason to skip this cookbook, but it’s something to be aware of. Interestingly, the Total Time estimate on these recipes does seem to include the missing phase, but I still had to double the prep time on almost anything I made. So the total times still had to be adjusted.
I’m all about trying to new recipes and this cookbook had a load of new recipes to try. They weren’t just rehashes of the same old recipes. There are a ton of new recipes in this book that helped me stretch my culinary boundaries. I’ve enjoyed the new flavors, and especially found several of the desserts intriguing. It was a pleasant surprise that the Hectic Family seemed to enjoy the new recipes too. Several of the kids have spent time living in South America and in Latino Caribbean islands for extended periods of time. I felt it was like a win when one of them told me the flavors reminded her of the Dominican Republic food she so enjoyed.
The section on Staples was interesting too. I’m always looking for ways to create foods that can be used as the base for other recipes, and this section of the cookbook had a plethora of options. I’m working on creating a number of these staples and storing them for use in upcoming meals. I’m also trying to perfect freezing some of them for quick-cooking when I’m in a rush. Not that in a rush ever happens at Hectic Manor. OK, who am I kidding…that’s our natural state around here!
While The 5-Ingredient Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook isn’t for everybody, especially if you’re not a fan of Latino-inspired food, it’s an excellent resource if you’re looking to expand your culinary skills but want to go about it quickly. The beauty of the Instant Pot and their brethren is the speed at which they prepare foods along with the set-it and forget-it nature. If you get delayed after a meal is done cooking the automatic warming mode can be a lifesaver. And when you consider that the food is cooked with the moisture intact it’s pretty hard to dry out a meal by overcooking it. While The 5-Ingredient Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook is a brand new on the bookshelves and at bookstores, it’s an awesome book that has truly impacted my kitchen. It’s a cookbook that I definitely recommend! I know it’s been helping make it a great day in the kitchen for me for a while now.