Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Pressure Cooker Cookbook: More Than 85 Foolproof Irresistible Recipes Tested in All the Most Popular Models

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having just bought my first pressure cooker, still filled with those childhood mental pixs of my mother's outraged cries, when the spinich hit the ceiling, I was looking for the beginner's guide. This book is not it.

Yes, it praises the wonders of pressure cookery, but says little as to how to prepare your first culinary attempts as you anxiously glance upwards. The author appears to be trying to reach two goals. The first, is to advance pressure cooking in the states, and second,to promote the healthy effects of mediterranean cooking.

In this reader's opinion, he fails on both counts. While there are several chapters on the nature of pressure cookery and the types of pressure cookware, these paragraphs are but glossy overviews interspaced with accounts of the author's life as student in Spain. In short, the book is light on specifics.

As to the recipes, the title says it all. They are in fact, selected items of mediterranean cooking. While they maybe the author's favorites and have a certain culinary curiosity about them, they should not be the cook's first few steps with the new pressure cooker. Recipe requirements are well setforth, but only terse paragraphs are given to preperation. This same paragraph is repeated and repeated in each new recipe. Conclusion, if didn't do it right the first time well....

Certainly, there are plenty of excellent mediterranean cookbooks out there. What we need is a good "how to" pressure cookbook. Then once the steam vessel is mastered, we will adapt those recipe favorites including mediterranean.

When I recently purchased a pressure cooker, a friend suggested this book and loaned me her copy. (I had already ordered copies of two of the Lorna Sass pressure cooking books, "Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure" and her new one, "Pressure Perfect.") I saw so many recipes I wanted to try that I am purchasing this book, too. My friend has made many of the recipes for her family and vouches for them. This book is clear, practical, and the author has had many years of perfecting the recipes for his favorite Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and North African dishes. I didn't find it intimidating at all.

By the way, after researching various models, I chose the Kuhn Rikon 7.25 liter pressure cooker. This Swiss line, which comes in a variety of sizes and shapes, has been called by the NY Times "The Mercedes of pressure cookers" and is renowned for quality and excellent customer service. For cooking grains and legumes, I also got an Ohsawa Pot, a lidded ceramic pot that fits inside.

Tom LaCalamita is The Italian Pressure Gourmet. Some cookbooks are, as a friend, full of information and some are simply filled with dependable recipes that are easy to prepare and delicious; This cookbook is both.

I find the exact ingrediants are important to the final finish. When I don't know what a particular ingredient is, I ask GOOGLE. For instance: I found that Italian frying peppers are simply very special in themselves as such, but that you can substitute yellow sweet peppers and be very close.

I enjoy the book. It helps a great deal with simple, easy to follow directions, in making the pressure cooker a normal method of cooking without emotional pressure.

I purchased this book when I got my first pressure cooker, and I was unimpressed. First, the general discussion of pressure cooking isn't that detailed, but most of all, the title of the book is misleading - I thought that I was getting a book with "general" recipes - but the book is limited to just mediterranean recipes. The book cover does not reveal that the recipes are limited to such recipes, and I think that it should. Had I opened the book and paged through it, I would not have purchased this volume.

The book was in excellent condition, but the information in it was outdated. It was for the older type of pressure cookers and did not have many useful recipes.

Tom Lacalamita's book gives just the right amount of help to a novice to prepare foods with the pressure cooker. The recipes are simple, but interesting to the taste. Safety is discussed, but the new cookers have triple-safe devices on them. You can't hurt yourself. His recipe for vegetable stock is absurdly easy to make well and delicious. Get the book!

The book cover doesn't mention Meditteranean Cooking, although the Amazon listing does. This book focuses on how to use the pressure cooker to eat a healthier diet with a focus on Meditteranean cuisine. I read this book as part of deciding whether to get a pressure cooker (so can't yet tell you how great the recipes are). This was definitely one of the most interesting - it had the basics on pressure cooker use, but also focused on menus that weren't to me the "same old, same old."

Everything I've made from this book has been delicious. I use it all the time. I don't think the ingredients are exotic! From reading the other customer reviews you can tell that the title should have emphasized the mediterranean aspect more but if super healthy delicious food is what you like, you'll like this book.

This book was extremely disappointing. I was looking for my first book on pressure cooking, and this one had nothing that my family would have wanted to eat. It was more for someone who is looking for gormet fare and exotic ingredients than for someone who just wants to feed their family a tasty, healthy meal.