I’ve been meaning to do a pressure cooker recipe ever since I got one a couple months ago, so far it’s been great at hard boiled eggs, steamed potatoes, rice and more. I decided to try mashed potatoes with cauliflower, all in the instapot at once. Mashed cauliflower is very similar to mashed potatoes in consistency and with enough butter you can’t really tell the difference – I remember dinner at my Grandmas house when I was young and really loved the mashed potatoes, I had seconds (maybe even thirds). As I was going to get even more someone told me it was mashed cauliflower. I was aghast. I didn’t like vegetables and I couldn’t eat any more of the food I was just moments ago thoroughly enjoying. Now I’m a little better at eating veggies so here’s my mashed potatoes mixed with cauliflower.
What is a Pressure Cooker Anyway?
A pressure cooker works by increasing the pressure inside a sealed chamber. Steam builds up and can’t escape the sealed lid, increasing the pressure. This increases the boiling point of water which means food can cook faster. Normally water boils at 212ºF, at that temperature it might take 20mins to cook rice. I’m in Denver and water here boils at 203ºF (because the atmospheric pressure is lower due to the elevation) so it might take 24-25mins to cook my rice. In a pressure cooker water can boil at up to 250ºF so it might take 10-12mins to cook rice.
The problem with a pressure cooker is it takes about 5mins to build up to the cooking pressure so you can’t just peak in and see if what you are cooking is done, unless you want to add 5mins to the cooking time. There are many recipes and guides but my elevation complicates things further since I’m starting from a lower atmospheric pressure I have to add some cooking time to sea level recipes.
Onto The Recipe
So now that you know some basics of what a pressure cooker is, here is how I made mashed potatoes and cauliflower. I combined a couple recipes I found online, mostly because none of them had exactly what I was looking for.
Here are the ingredients, potatoes, cauliflower, butter, garlic and milk. And of course salt and pepper.
The first step is to peel the potatoes (or don’t, sometimes I like mashed potatoes with skins), I tried soaking them in cold water for 30mins to remove excess starch but I don’t think it made a big difference, the water was still pretty clear at the end.
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I tried to keep the cauliflower in larger chunks because most recipes I found for pressure cooked cauliflower called for 5mins cooking time while most pressure cooked potato recipes call for 8-12mins. I was hoping with larger chunks of cauliflower and smaller chunks of potatoes I could get them all cooked at the same time.
It turns out the 2 potatoes were about 400g and the cauliflower was about 600g. I’m open to cauliflower, but wanted a more even ratio so I added another potato. Final potato weight was 583g vs. 604g for the cauliflower so there was still more cauliflower but this was a more acceptable to me.
While the potatoes were soaking I chopped up the garlic and grated some parmesan:
Finally the potatoes were done soaking and it was time to get them into the pressure cooker.
On the right is the pressure cooker pot that goes inside the pressure cooker. I read a good tip about putting food into the pot while it’s not inside the pressure cooker because otherwise something could spill over the edge and end up between the heating element of the pressure cooker and the pot. Well that happened anyway, I must have rested the pot on some garlic that was left on the cutting board because now my instapot has burned garlic on the heating element.
On the left is the steam basket which holds the food above the water to allow it to steam. The first time I used it, after it was done cooking I went to grab the plastic handle thinking it wouldn’t be hot because it wasn’t metal. I was wrong.
I cut the potatoes into 1/8ths because the shortest cook time I found was 8mins for quarters of potatoes, so hopefully smaller pieces will cook faster so they’ll finish at the same time as the cauliflower which most recipes called for 5mins.
I loaded it all into the pressure cooker with 1cup of water on the bottom, seal the lid and set the time to 6mins and let it work.
This is the pressure valve, on the left is the switch between sealed and venting and the little silver thing pops up when the pressure cooker is sealed and increasing pressure.
While it’s cooking I melted the butter.
Multitasking here, but not really. Pressure cooker was pretty much on autopilot (fingers crossed cauliflower and potatoes are both cooked). On the right is the sous vide where I’m warming up a chicken breast I had previously cooked and frozen and was done whenever I was ready for it. So I only had to keep an eye on the butter.
A closer look at the sous vide. I’ve found it’s great for reheating frozen foods. A few weeks ago I cooked 2 chicken breasts and froze one still in it’s bag. When I want to eat it I take it out of the freezer and pop it in the sous vide for an hour or so.
When the butter is all melted I add the garlic.
Saute the garlic until golden brown then add the milk. When it is hot remove from heat and set aside.
When the pressure cooker is done with the cooking time there are two ways to finish, natural pressure release or quick release. Natural pressure release takes longer (15-20mins) and keeps cooking the food, the quick release takes about 2mins or so and that’s what this recipe called for.
As you can see I flip the pressure switch and the steam comes out. I use a towel because the steam is hot. Remember boiling point inside the pressure cooker can reach 250ºF, which means that’s the temperature of the steam coming out. It smells like a concentrated version of whatever you are cooking and fills my small apartment for hours. Hard boiled eggs don’t always smell great for hours.
Eventually the little silver thing will pop back down and then you can open the cooker and finally see if what you were cooking is actually finished cooking.
Luckily both the potatoes and cauliflower were the perfect consistency.
They mashed together well.
And I finished by adding the milk/butter/garlic mixture and parmesan cheese.
They came out great. A little different than my normal stovetop mashed potatoes, but that could be the cauliflower, or the parmesan or pressure cooker.
The Recipe
-600g Russet Potatoes (about 3) cut into 1/8ths
-600g Cauliflower (about 1 head) cut into large chunks
-3Tbsp Unsalted Butter
-4 cloves minced garlic
-3/4cup milk
-20g Parmesan Cheese
-Salt and pepper
Total weight: 1428g
Total calories: 1086
-Fill pressure cooker with 1 cup of water.
-Place vegetable steamer into pressure cooker pot and add potatoes and cauliflower
-Close lid, cook in high pressure for 6mins (if you live at 1 mile of elevation, 5 might work at sea level)
-While cooking potatoes/cauliflower, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and saute until it starts turning golden brown. Add milk and remove from heat when hot, seasoning with salt and pepper.
-When potatoes/cauliflower are done, quick release the pressure and mash together in a large pot. Add the milk/butter/garlic mixture and parmesan cheese, stir until well combined. Season with more salt and pepper.
Notes: When searching for recipes I found many different versions, some with heavy cream, some with carrots, some with olive oil. I’ll have many variations to try out. Also the parmesan didn’t really come through, so next time I’ll use more or leave it out.
