The Pressure Is On! Star Anise Turkey

Well, after WAY too long an absence, the pressure cooker reentered my life today! For years I did have a reasonably modern one but it was aluminum, got pretty scruffy looking, and didn’t make it with the last move, and I vowed to upgrade to a stainless, larger one (I got the eight-quart capacity one).  I never had one of the old-style scary ones, those rattling, dangerous-looking contraptions that would sometimes literally blow up, but I do remember being terrified of the one in my grandmother’s kitchen, with stories of extremely hot pressurized food on the walls and ceiling after scaring the crap out of everyone! So many of us have a not-so-irrational fear of these things.

Happily, today’s manufacturers of pressure cookers have figured all this out. They are now  totally safe, and easy to use; you can’t even open them until the pressure goes back to zero (why did it take them so long to figure this out?).

So what are they good for? Lots of stuff, but I especially like them for cooking tough cuts of meat. Many cooks are intimidated by the tougher cuts like shoulder, shank, and round, but pressure cooking quickly breaks down muscle fibers into collagen, which makes the meat so fork-tender and soft, infused with whatever flavoring you care to impart to it, that you almost need a spoon, not a fork, to eat it. And, of course, it imbues the house with its incredible aromas. They’re also wonderful for beans.

The virgin outing with the new machine featured turkey thighs. I do like the taste of dark turkey meat, but I’ve had problems cooking it to perfection. Problems, be gone! I gave them a very heavy coating of freshly ground star anise, which has a magical affinity with turkey, salt, and pepper, and sauteed them, with a little olive oil over high heat. After deeply browning both sides, I removed the two gigantic thighs and added a large onion (roughly chopped), a few peeled carrots, about half a cup of fresh ginger, a manzano chile, and a half a moqua (an entry on this remarkable Asian vegetable will follow soon), and cooked the veggies for about five minutes. Back in went the turkey, along with about two cups of homemade chicken stock. Cooked under pressure for about 40 minutes.

It makes me happy when meat just falls, with the slightest microprodding, off the bones. And that’s exactly what happened to this turkey. Most of the veggies just melted, so I pureed them with a stick blender, and added a handful of blue lake green beans. Served with a big pot of brown rice cooked in chicken stock and perfumed with a few kaffir lime leaves, along with a chilled glass of Australian riesling. It was heavenly.

Any pressure cooks out there? What’s your favorite thing to do with a pressure cooker?