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!