The ones now are much safer than the ones before but, even so, from time to time we are surprised by the news that someone has gone wrong using a pressure cooker. The last one came to us last September, when a woman died in San Salvador de Abeancos (Melide) when she was exploited while cooking with her.
And, although the pressure cooker is an excellent tool that saves us time and money (since they consume much less energy), its misuse is the main cause of accidents. We have pointed out the main mistakes we make with them to try to avoid them as much as possible.
It is the main error. “People fill it too much, put too much water, and in the end, as it oozes out and gains strength, it can end up exploding,” explains food journalist María Zarzelejos, author of the book The Kitchen of the Pressure Cooker (Alianza Editorial), which with More than 30,000 copies sold and three reissues has become something like the 'Don Quixote' of this kitchen tool. To avoid accidents, the expert recommends that the amount of water added does not exceed 2/3.
Ana Lobato and David Gil, from the kitchen team at the Alìcia Foundation, agree with this opinion, who also explain that it is important to also control the quantities of the ingredients that we are going to cook: “For example, for a family of four people, with cooking "Less than a kilo of legumes is more than enough if they are not previously hydrated."
Good maintenance of the pressure cooker is extremely important. And before using it again you should always make sure, as Gil explains, that the “little hole through which the steam comes out is not blocked, that the rubber bands are very clean and that each piece fits perfectly.”
The rubbers “must be changed every 6 months if the pressure cooker is used a lot,” says Zarzelejos, who adds that it is also necessary to buy a replacement from the same brand, “there is no need to go looking for them at the Chinese store because we can risk it.” If the pressure cooker is rarely used, “changing them every two years is fine,” say the experts at the Alìcia Foundation. Of course, you always have to make sure that they are not broken before starting to cook.
It is another of the mistakes that causes the most accidents, leaving the pressure cooker always cooking at the same temperature, simply abandoning it on the heat, when the correct thing is to "lower the heat when we see that the steam begins to come out of it" says the author of the book The Pressure Cooker Kitchen.
According to Zarzalejos, the ideal is to “put the heat to minimum when it has already reached maximum power so that the food cooks without problems and there is no risk of accidents.”
Many times we do it in a hurry, but this habit can give us a good scare. This is how Lobato and Gil explain it to us, who recommend opening it by “first uncovering the spout where the steam comes out and never trying to open it without it coming out completely.”
For greater safety, they add that it is best to “let the pot rest for five minutes before executing the maneuver.”
The dishwasher is not a friend of the pressure cooker, no matter how much we hate it. On the contrary, “the soap used in the dishwasher is much more aggressive and can damage it,” say Lobato and Gil. Furthermore, the high washing temperatures of this machine “can wear out the rubber”, and as we have seen, this is not convenient at all.
Zarzelejos agrees with this opinion, who recommends washing the pressure cooker by hand and cleaning the inside with a sponge so as not to scratch the non-stick coating. Also “you have to be very careful that it doesn't fall, because we can destroy it,” adds the expert.
They can be a warning that something is wrong. “When you hear beeps or strange sounds, it is best to turn off the heat and let the pressure cooker cool,” says Zarzelejos.
“Perhaps the handle, for example, is not properly engaged and by ignoring the sound we could have an accident,” he concludes.
