Interlude Accompanied By Pressure Cooker

To momentarily deflect attention from my increasingly distant San Francisco visit, I will take a moment to praise the culinary efforts of my trusty pressure cooker by way of the presentation (with obligatory photos) of the meal I quickly made up last evening. I will not name it for to do so would be to diminish it to some easily identifiable and therefore hum-drum existence. It, like much in life, is a construction of parts, of which none can lay absolute claim for its eventual resulting texture and flavor, in the way that a swingset is a swingset and not a metal tube or a plastic seat. My rhetoric, I am aware, is becoming ridiculous (though true).

These parts are: 1 cup dry brown rice (Basmati), 2 cups dry red lentils, two medium orange carrots (chopped), one medium russet potato (chopped), half of a yellow onion (diced coarsely), five to eight cloves of garlic (minced), three-fourths of a bag of frozen spinach, fourth cup of olive oil or so, splash of balsalmic vinegar, fourth cup of sesame seeds (ground fresh), some nutritional yeast, maybe fourth cup sugar, five cups of water, one cup soy milk and spices (details forthcoming).

The spices I used are the following: mixed peppercorns, cumin seed, black mustard seed, asafoetida a.k.a. hing (interesting history behind this special spice), curry leaf, coriander seed, toasted lentils, cayenne powder and coconut. Hence this bowl of spices:

 

More after the jump~

Which, with the help of my wonderfully simple mortar and pestle, became this:

 

So, this sets up the profile of the dish's flavor, helped along by the addition of the previously stated ingredients. For the fun of it and because it was on hand, I also ground up some sesame seeds into an oily mash. I don't know if this did anything. All the veggies were chopped or minced and placed into a nice white bowl. See:

 

 As the Indians and their cuisine have taught me, I get the oil hot first. The spices come first and the place gets fragrant. I said what the hell and threw in the sesame mash as well. It smells fantastic, let me tell you. By the way, I am starting and ending in the pressure cooker. No other pot or pan needed. If smell-o-vision were a real thing this picture would make you really hungry:

 

The vegetables in all their variousness are then added after about three to five minutes, including the frozen spinach. I allowed them time to cook and smell up my apartment some more. I like to add my lentils and rice to the oil with the veggies before adding the water. I feel it adds some nuttiness or something. Regardless, I do it. Then the water and soy milk are added. All these things you will see in the upcoming pictures:

 

Vegetables.

 

Pretty with lentils and rice.

  

Liquids.

At this point, it is boiling. I place the lid atop my pressure cooker, lock it, set it to high pressure and wait for pressure to be attained. When this occurs a little yellow button pops up and I turn down the heat to medium-low and set the timer to twenty minutes. This turns out to be a little shy of the time it wants to take, so I gave it about ten additional minutes. When complete, I pull out my immersion blender (a.k.a. stick blender) (courtesy of Renee Petty) and blend the hot soup into a mush, a texture which I have come to love more and more. See for yourself:

 

Pressure cooker.

 

Me and my appliances.

 

My kitchen, complete with wine, cookbooks and garlic.

 

The resulting flavorful mush!

To top it off, I obsessively tallied the nutritional profiles of every item that went into this nameless vegan glory. Here are some approximate highlights:

Per bowl:

305 calories

1.4g saturated fat

7.3g monounsaturated fat

1g polyunsaturated fat

94mg omega-3

1,118mg omega-6

6.6g of dietary fiber

12.7g or protein

4,815IU of vitamin A

5.7mg of vitamin C

96mg of calcium

3.7mg of iron

8.8mcg of vitamin K

69.7mg of magnesium

182.8mg of phosphorous

476.4mg of potassium

Too much time wasted on that internet adventure.