Pressure cooker, take two: risotto

Preface to what you’re about to read:  my bridal shower was last weekend, and my gag gift was the LARGEST pair of granny panties my eyes have ever seen.

So this is how my morning started:  I was in the bathroom, getting ready for work, when I heard my cat Orville making a ruckus in the hallway.  I poked my head out the door and caught Orville wildly running back and forth in the hallway with the granny panties in his mouth.  This continued for several moments and ended with Orville collapsing on the ground, hugging the underwear with his front paws while he kicked at them with his back legs, and finally curling up in a ball and resting his head on the panties like they were a cat-sized pillow.

It was bound to be an interesting day from the get-go.  With an interesting day comes an interesting cooking experience.

First, I tackled my second pressure cooker recipe:  rapid risotto.  I LOVE rice dishes, especially risotto, but I really despise how long rice takes to cook.  Having survived my first pressure cooking undertaking, I was a lot calmer going into my second venture.  I also learned what I did wrong in the first recipe that had caused the beans not to cook thoroughly (I turned the heat down too low when trying to maintain high pressure), with the hope that I wouldn’t have the same issue with the risotto.

While the risotto cooked, I coated some chicken breasts with a meat rub and put them in my brand new grill pan!  I’ve emphasized those words because that’s how ecstatic I felt when I purchased this grill pan a couple of nights ago.  I’ve wanted a grill pan for a really…long…time.  But don’t let the enthusiasm fool you.  My grill pan is already in the doghouse, so to speak.

I’ve been watching cooking shows (ahem…Giada) in which food is prepared on the grill pan, and it looks AMAZING.  When I purchased my grill pan earlier this week, I was beside myself with excitement as I thought about all the wondrous things my new pan would produce.  But the closer my chicken breasts came to being cooked, the more it became clear to me that the grill pan had done nothing differently than just any ol’ frying pan I could have pulled out of my kitchen cabinet.  I was even robbed of the fancy grill marks the pan should have left on my chicken.  Unless I’m missing something important, I’m almost sure I wasted my money.

Luckily, I had no issues with my risotto and it couldn’t have turned out any better.  Given that the total cook time was only about 10 minutes, I do believe the pressure cooker will be my preferred method for preparing risotto from now on!  Bonus:  this time, I didn’t flinch even once out of fear that my pressure cooker might explode.

Even though I was disappointed by the lack of pizzazz in my grill pan’s performance, the chicken was decent.  I also discovered the deliciousness of cooking broccoli in the chicken juices left over in the pan.  Mmmmmmm.

Now that I’ve done rice and beans in the pressure cooker, my next endeavor will be to cook some chicken pressure-cooker-style.  I think I can, I think I can…

Dough, take one: dinner rolls

Yesterday was the kickoff to my second “Two Week Technique.”  For the next two weeks, I will be teaching myself all about the art of making and baking dough!

Several months ago, I told my mom I wanted to make some bread and her response had been, “Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out well the first time.”  At the time, I had zilch for cooking skills and decided to put my bread dreams on hold.  Now I feel comfortable enough wandering into a doughier territory.

I opted to start with some dinner rolls from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  As I started the prep work, I knew just a few simple things about bread and dough-making:  you need yeast to make the dough rise, kneading is important, and dough needs time to rise.  However, what I did NOT know was that the temperature of the liquid being mixed in with the flour can be too cold to activate the yeast or too hot, which will kill the yeast.  Therefore, when I read that my mixture of butter, milk, and sugar needed to be between 120 and 130 degrees, I took it with a grain of salt.  In fact, I didn’t understand the importance of the temperature until after my batch of rolls had finished baking.  I simply waited for the butter to almost completely melt, and that’s when I added the mixture to the flour.

After what I have dubbed “The World’s Greatest Arm Workout,” I had a big ball of dough.

I transferred the dough ball into a greased bowl and let it sit.  I was pathetically excited to check on it every ten minutes to see if it had grown any.  Like watching a pregnant woman’s belly over time.

An hour later, my dough ball had doubled in size.  The recipe instructed to “punch” the dough down–I hadn’t expected that the whole thing would deflate!  Then, I moved it to my floured surface and divided it in two.

After some more time rising, I divided the dough into 16 miniature dough balls.  Then they had to rise another half an hour and I finally slid them into the oven.  While I waited, very nervously, I piled some things on top of my cat.  (Please don’t panic, he doesn’t mind it one bit.  He purred and stared at me lovingly the entire time.)

Twelve minutes later, this is what came out of my oven:

While they were still piping hot, there was no way I wasn’t trying one.  Despite my complete ignorance to the whole temperature-of-the-liquid thing, I managed to make some of the GREATEST dinner rolls I have ever tasted.  Tonight, I served them with some garlic Parmesan-Romano chicken and broccoli.

So.  On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, my confidence level for my two weeks of dough-makin’ is a freaking 11.  Next up, I will tackle something that has always been a personal struggle:  pizza dough.  The only pizza dough I’ve ever made is the kind that comes in a Jiffy box, so I’m going to test my skills at the real deal.  Can’t wait!