Why meals are cooked faster in a pressure cooker?

By -

Why meals are cooked faster in a pressure cooker?


A pressure cooker is like any other pot but with a more elaborated lid that seals the pot completely. When you heat water inside the pot it boils and the steam cannot escape, so it remains inside and starts to build up pressure. Under pressure, cooking temperatures raise much higher than under normal conditions (higher than the boiling point of water, that is 100ºC), so then the food is cooked much faster. Cooking times can be reduced by a factor of three or four.

Besides cooking faster, this method retains more nutrients present in the food than other methods. And did you know that a pressure cooker is often used by mountain climbers? Without it, water boils off before reaching 100ºC because of the lower atmospheric pressure at high altitudes, leaving the food improperly cooked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do onions make you cry?

By -
Image
Why do onions make you cry? Who has never cried while cutting an onion? (well, apart from those who have never cut one hehehe). This is a little explanation in easy terms. Inside the onion cells there are some chemical compounds that contain sulfur. When you cut an onion its cells are broken and those chemical compounds then undergo a reaction that transforms them into a more volatile sulfured products, which are released into the air. These sulfured compounds react with the moisture in your eyes forming sulfuric acid, which produces a burning sensation. The nerve endings in your eyes are very sensitive and so they pick up on this irritation. The brain reacts by telling your tear ducts to produce more water, to dilute the irritating acid. So you cry to keep your eyes protected from the acid. There are some tricks to make onion-dicing less problematic: - Chop the onion under cold water . The volatile sulfured compounds will be released but then they react with the w
Read more

Why coffee keeps you awake?

By -
Image
Why coffee keeps you awake? It is well-known that the effect of coffee on mood is related to its content in caffeine (you can see its pic on the right) But why caffeine has such a strong effect on us? Caffeine operates using the same mechanisms of amphetamines, cocaine, and heroin to stimulate the brain, though with milder effects. It manipulates the same channels as the other drugs, and that is one of the things that gives caffeine its addictive qualities. There is a chemical in our brain called adenosine , that binds to certain receptors and slows down nerve cell activity when we are sleeping. To a nerve cell, caffeine looks like adenosine and it binds to the adenosine receptors. However, as it's not really adenosine, it doesn't slow down the cell's activity like adenosine would. So the cell cannot "see" adenosine anymore because caffeine has taken up all the receptors adenosine binds to. Then, instead of slowing down because of the adenos
Read more