Presto Cooker Recipe Book

by the National Pressure Cooker Company 1946

As you can see, this booklet is pretty beat up.  I think it's seen a lot of action. I think that's a good sign. Must be good recipes within!
I decided to select two recipes again. I think I will try to do that with all my booklets I try. The first recipe I wanted to try was cornmeal which you make up in the cooker and then slice and fry later, after it sets up. I haven't had cornmeal mush in ages, but I remember I thought it was quite tasty.
Bad news though. Firstly, I don't own a Presto Cooker (model 40) or any other Presto Cooker. Nor would I use a vintage one if I had it. My mother used to tell horror stories about pressure cookers exploding every time she used hers to make us dinner. I always stayed out of the kitchen when she was using it. Apparently if you didn't know what you were doing a pressure cooker could be a regular time bomb.
I purchased a Fagor pressure cooker for myself. Nice and new and much less scary. The Presto model 40 was a 4 quart pressure cooker, so that's what I used for my recipes.
Back to the bad news. The Fagor pressure cooker stresses most strongly that you are not to use it for cereals. These cereals include cornmeal as well as oatmeal, cream of wheat, wheat meal, malt-o-meal, and gruel. Darn it! No gruel! Ever since seeing Mr. Henry Woodhouse gumming it down in Emma I have wanted to try that sweet cure-all myself! And I had to change my plans.
Look how yummy those cereals look, though:

Well... maybe not so much.

`Onward...to... Swiss Steak!

There were two different recipes for Swiss Steak. I chose number one because it didn't have any tomato products in it. I remember my Mom's Swiss Steak being very good, but I absolutely do not remember a tomato sauce base. Yet, everywhere you look for Swiss Steak recipes they all have tomatoes in them. I was beginning to think I was crazy. My Mom made it in a brown gravy. So I was thrilled to find this recipe.
Here it is:

Swiss Steak - No. 1

2 lbs. round steak, 1 inch thick
2 Tbsp. Flour
1 small onion, cut fine
2 Tbsp. horse-radish
Salt and Pepper
2 Tbsp. fat (I used Crisco)
1/4 cup water

Method: Cut steak into serving pieces. Mix flour with salt and pepper.  Pound steak on both sides. (Had a frustrating day? Take it out on your steak). Roll steak into seasoned flour. Heat cooker; add fat. Brown meat in hot fat on both sides. Sprinkle onion and horse-radish over meat and add water. Place cover on cooker. Allow steam to flow from vent pipe to release all air from cooker. Place indicator weight on vent pipe and cook 15 minutes with stem at cook position. Let stem return to down position. 

Ta-da, you're done! Well, not exactly. First of all, modern cookers aren't built quite the same way. You will just have to read the instructions for your specific cooker to understand how yours works. The main thing is that once your cooker is at it's full steam it should take 15 minutes to cook. Then do as the instructions say and let the food sit in the cooker for 10 to 15 minutes or however long it takes your "stem" to return to a down position.  I made a mistake and did not do this. I was unsure what to do after the 15 minutes so I turned the dial on mine to instant pressure release. My high-pitched squeal was no doubt heard throughout the entire neighborhood as a powerful blast of steam went shooting across the kitchen! Not only that, but by not waiting for it to sit for a bit it was not as tender as it should of been. You see, during those 10 or 15 minutes while you wait for the pressure to go down, the food is actually still cooking.

The results: a tender piece of meat created from a notoriously tough cut of beef. I read online that this dish got it's name because the Swiss are well-known to be cheap and that's why they created this way to make a cheap, tough meat tasty and tender. Now...I did not say this, I only read it online. Probably just a bunch of hooey. 

Other notes: This did not end up tasting like my Mom's recipe. I'm pretty sure there was no horseradish in hers, but it was still good, and I found that it was actually better tasting as leftovers, which is unusual, for me anyway.

Now, this next recipe was supposed to be the cornmeal mush recipe. As I mentioned earlier, my Fagor cooker said "No way, Jose". Apparently the cereal bubbles up into the lid and gums up the works. So I peeked through the book to see what I could make with ingredients I already had on hand. I found:

Barbecued Chicken

I love barbecued chicken, but I don't have it too often. Rarely actually. Also, I didn't have a whole chicken, cut in pieces, but I did have 2 1/2 lbs of chicken drumsticks I bought because they were on sale pretty cheap. They're actually my least favorite cut of chicken, but cheap is cheap. (Hey! maybe I'm Swiss!...just kidding).

2 to 3 1/2 lbs chicken
Paprika
2 Tbsp. Shortening
Salt
1/2 cup chili sauce
1 onion, minced
2 Tbsp. vinegar
1 Tbsp. water
1/4 tsp. pepper

Method:  Cut chicken into serving pieces. Sprinkle with paprika. Heat cooker and add shortening. Brown chicken and then season with salt. Combine chili sauce, onion, vinegar, water, and pepper and pour over chicken. Place cover on cooker. Allow steam to flow from vent pipe to release all air from cooker. Place indicator weight on vent pipe and cook 15 minutes with stem at COOK position. Let stem return to DOWN position. 

Now, as with the Swiss Steak recipe you have to follow the instructions given with your cooker. This time I waited 10 to 15 minutes before I used the release steam valve.  It made all the difference. The chicken was just fall-apart tender and very juicy. I would not say that this tasted like barbecued chicken, however. But if you like super tender chicken in a tangy tomato-based sauce I recommend this recipe. It really made the house smell delicious. In fact the smell was so strong I could hardly get to sleep that night from smelling it. Today (two days later) I just had some of the leftovers, and, once again, like the Swiss Steak, it was even better than the first time around.     

I am really liking food that comes from the pressure cooker. I will not lie though. I still fear it somewhat. Childhood fears really stick with you... and did you know that if you make faces at people, your face might stick that way? I learned that in my childhood too!

Four Novel Sandwiches

For special affairs yet easy to prepare

Not much to look at, this little fold-over pamphlet. It was put out by The Langendorf United Bakeries, Inc. California. No date but the company was in existence in the early 1920s.  I'm going to guess that this pamphlet came from the late 20s. The company does not exist anymore. Langendorf Royal Bread was known for it's softness as the pamphlet claims,  "most breads will not roll without breaking." Never fear however, with Langendorf you can roll, roll away!
I tried two of these dainty tea-room style sandwiches.

Pimiento Neapolitan

Trim the thin bottom crusts from a loaf of Langendorf Royal White and a loaf of Royal Whole Wheat. Cut each loaf lengthwise into four even slices, discarding the top crust. Spread all facing sides with a creamed mixture of  3/4 pimiento cheese and 1/4 butter. Stack alternate dark and light slices, press together firmly, trim side crusts and serve cuts from the end like layer cake.

That's the whole recipe. I had quite a difficult time with this one. For starters, bread just doesn't come unsliced anymore. Certainly not the soft type of bread required for this recipe. I decided I might be able to make it work with bread I had baked from frozen bread dough...unfortunately all I could find was white. I bought the frozen white dough and headed to the bakery to see what was available in wheat. I had to settle for an oval loaf of whole grain wheat bread...not soft. In putting together this sandwich there was a lot of waste, especially with my attempts to make an oval loaf square. Also cutting off all the crusts was wasteful. Thank goodness I have a backyard full of woodland critters who were happy to eat the cast-offs.
In the end I managed to produce a facsimile of the recipe, but because of the texture of the wheat bread, the whole composition was just off. It was soft, chewy, soft, chewy.

Sorry; not the best picture, but I'm new at this.
So...in the end this was a dud for me...plus a waste of bread.

next up...

Peanut Butter Honey Roll

 Cut slices a quarter of an inch thick, long ways of a loaf of Langendorf Royal White beginning at the bottom. Then trim off the crusts. Spread the slices evenly with peanut butter previously mixed with honey (3/4 peanut butter and 1/4 honey). Roll slowly from end to end. To serve, cut dainty slices from the roll. 

This was much easier. Once again I used bread baked from frozen bread dough. It was nice and soft and easy to roll. The peanut butter / honey mixture was proportioned just right, very nice. Aside from cut, spread, roll, slice, the only additional advice I would add is to refrigerate the roll before making your slices to maintain the roundness of the roll. 
Here is another bad picture...sorry.

As you can see, I was a little over-zealous with the amount of peanut butter I used. I would suggest spreading  it thinner than I did. Still and all, very tasty. Usually I am the only one to try these recipes but I can tell you that this one gets not just one, but two thumbs up.
As I was eating a "dainty slice" a little squirrel-beggar came to the sliding glass door and looked in longingly. I shared my lunch with him and he was so delighted he did a little squirrel-jig. Just as he was about to leave he winked at me, and gave me the thumbs up. So...there you are.
My additional input on this one is... unless you're heading to your weekly bridge party and are providing the goodies, just mix up the peanut butter and honey and spread it on bread like a regular sandwich. It's much better than the store-bought honey peanut butter. Also, don't eat it outside unless your are prepared to share with squirrels.
Happy eating!