I read with excitement about the upcoming Pepperpot Festival that will be held 2 weeks from today – Saturday, November 26. The festival is the brainchild of Andrea Bryan-Garner who is the festival’s Managing Director, a Journalist and Creative. In the lead-up to the festival, there are many debates and discussions surrounding Pepperpot, and one of the hot topics is the cooking method – pressure cook or boil?
Which camp are you in? Perhaps we should first take a look at what it means to pressure cook and boil.
According to world renowned authority on the chemistry of foods and cooking, Harold McGee, to pressure cook is to tightly seal meat(s) and cooking liquid in the pot, allowing the vaporising water to build up the pressure to double the normal air pressure. This increased pressure increases the boiling point. High pressure and temperature put together produce an overall doubling or tripling of the heat transfer rate into the meat. This method of cooking efficiently converts collagen to gelatin. Food is cooked in considerably less time.