Pressure cooker

Uncommon card · No. 124143

A pressure cooker is a sealed vessel used for cooking food with the use of high pressure steam and water or a water-based liquid, in a process called pressure cooking. The high pressure limits boiling and permits cooking at higher temperatures, allowing food to be cooked faster than at normal pressure. The prototype of the modern pressure cooker was the steam digester invented in the seventeenth century by the physicist Denis Papin. It works by expelling air from the vessel and trapping steam produced from the boiling liquid. This is used to raise the internal pressure to one atmosphere above ambient and gives higher cooking temperatures between 100–121 °C (212–250 °F). Together with high thermal heat transfer from steam it permits cooking in between a half and a quarter the time of conventional boiling as well as saving considerable energy. Almost any food that can be cooked in steam or water-based liquids can be cooked in a pressure cooker. Modern pressure cookers have many safety features...

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