Publication Day!

Some Everyday Pressure Cooking hype, a very useful post on nutrition, a Zoom invite and a little recipe in the spirit of the book

Hello Everybody. First a few things related to the fact that today is the official publication day of Everyday Pressure Cooking….

I know some of you have had copies for a while and have been cooking from it. This is wonderful for me to hear (all a cookery book author wants) and I really love hearing which dishes you are drawn to, which ones you like and revisit. If you are enjoying the book, please consider reviewing it, wherever you buy it (a card in your local Independent, even?), because it really, really helps.

If you haven’t bought it yet and are thinking about it, you might like to know that Amazon have Everyday Pressure Cooking reduced to £15.89 at the moment. AND - this will please more of you, I expect, so do Hive. I have no idea how long it will last but it is of course a good time to buy if you are buying multiple copies. I know some of you are - one person - admittedly a lovely friend, but even so this is a lot - bought six copies from their local bookshop last week. SIX COPIES! My MUM has never bought six copies of any of my books! At least I don’t think she has. I should ask.

Next, I know some of you clicked through to India Knight’s post about the book last Sunday, but I’m just reminding the rest of you that she has also extracted a good range of recipes if you want to take a look. It’s an open access post. I don’t normally do this, but please indulge me this once as I quote from her post. I just felt that this encapsulates what I am trying to do - this is EXACTLY how I hope people see it:

And onto another Substack author. Nutritionist Jeannette Hyde, author of The Gut Makeover, has written an EXCELLENT piece on the nutritional benefits of pressure cooking. I know I talk about this every so often but I am quite vague on the actual details and she isn’t at all. I promise that you will learn a lot from reading her post - it might even encourage you to try things you normally avoid. I have been encouraging people to try pressure cooking Jerusalem artichokes to see what happens, digestively speaking. Anxiously awaiting the results. Jeannette has also extracted a recipe from Everyday Pressure Cooking - a one pot aubergine and halloumi dish.

Jeannette came to one of my demos recently and I immediately realised she knew an awful lot about this so we’re going to be doing

A VERY INTERESTING ZOOM CHAT

On 17th November, at 5pm. Jeannette will be interviewing me about the mechanics of pressure cooking, we’ll be discussing the sort of recipes which work best to improve gut health and there will be a lot of opportunities to ask questions. This is an event for paid subscribers only and the link for registration is behind the paywall below.

Which leads me to

SUBSCRIPTION DISCOUNT!

Just to celebrate the publication of Everyday Pressure Cooking and to incentivise you to sign up to the Zoom, I am doing a 25% discount off subscriptions for the next week. Until end of 14th November. Here is a link for the offer, or you can just click through on the Subscribe tab. And as an extra incentive, a copy of Everyday Pressure Cooking goes to the 10th person to do so, regardless of subscription plan….

And finally, for today, a recipe.

I know that some of the recipes in this newsletter aren’t always every day type cooking, but today really epitomises how life/cooking goes sometimes. I had plans. I am half way through the 2 days it takes me to make THE BEST oxtail soup. A triple quantity as it takes so long to make and I wanted to put lots of individual portions in the freezer. There are recipes in both The Pressure Cooker Cookbook and Modern Pressure Cooking, but it involves searing and cooking and straining and skimming, and pureeing and picking meat off the bones and then making more stock from all the discards. The cooking is the shortest bit - it is the cooling and the picking which really takes the time. Totally worth it but it is a real labour of love. I might do a recipe here at some point.

But, today, no one can manage anything as rich because lurgies have struck, I did not have the energy to finish it (up since 2.30, so knackered, in pain, tedious admin to do, ferrying people around, a child off sick). All anyone wanted was BRAT style stuff - with just a hint of flavour.

So I did what I often do in these circumstances - steamed rice with stuff added. When anyone has a bad stomach, lightly salted rice with perhaps a bit of ginger is the absolute best thing. Today things weren’t quite that bad, so I added a little more flavour but hardly any fibre. So the rice had some very finely chopped chicken (already cooked, but finely diced raw would cook in the same time), ginger, turmeric, a little black pepper for the turmeric, a very light chicken stock and bit of soy afterwards. And a scrambled egg stirred in at the end for the one person who wanted it. I made enough for 2 decent sized bowls, but it would probably serve 4 as a side dish instead of the main event.

You can add all kinds of other things - any cooked meat, frozen peas or other greens, a bit of grated carrot maybe, different flavours. But this, as is, is soothing and gentle and comforting in the extreme.

Ingredients

300g basmati rice, well rinsed

50-75g cooked chicken meat finely diced (or twice the amount raw)

A small pice of ginger, finely grated or chopped

A pinch of turmeric

450ml light chicken stock, vegetable stock or water

2 eggs

A dash of soy sauce

I say in the ingredients list, rinse the rice well, and I really mean it. You need to get rid of as much of the starch as you can. I put the rice in a bowl, cover with water, swirl around and strain. And repeat several times. I cannot stress how much of a difference it makes, it is one of the few times when I am cavalier with my water usage.

Put the well drained rice in your pressure cooker with a pinch of salt, the chicken, ginger and turmeric. If you wanted to use a bit of fat (oil or butter), you can do so and saute everything first. Pour in the liquid, give a quick stir (deglaze if you have sauteed), and bring up to high pressure. Cook for 3 minutes at high pressure then remove from the heat and leave to drop pressure naturally. If you have time, remove the lid, cover with a tea towel and put back on loosely, leaving to stand for a few minutes - it really helps the rice fluff up. Scramble the eggs lightly, with or without oil/fat, then break up and stir through the rice. Add soy sauce to taste.

That is it! So simple but very useful and adaptable, I think. I had a portion as well and added a dash of sesame oil and some already cooked greens.

Thank for reading! Please do share the post with anyone you think might be interested. As I mention above, under the paywall is a link to the Zoom chat with Jeannette Hyde which will be available to anyone who becomes a subscriber.