Some of you might be wondering why we had an appeal to raise money for pressure cookers. Perhaps it seems a funny thing to give to people in the slums? If you visit an Indian kitchen you will find that there are usually at least two or three different sizes of pressure cooker! They are used regularly often daily, to cook rice, dal and even meat!
We use pressure cookers all the time in our kitchen and they save time and use less gas. During the summer when it is above 40 degrees any minutes saved from sweating over a hot stove are very welcome!!
When we met the families in the slum they told us that they often come back from work late at night and did not want to spend a lot of time cooking, many were keen to have a gas cylinder and stove for cooking rather than having to cook on an open fire chulha (stove). Many people had mentioned that a pressure cooker woul
d be helpful for them and so we decided to start the appeal to provide a cooker to each family who had been affected by the fire.
Many housewives who use cookers in India do not time the cooking process with a timer but instead they will talk in terms of how many ‘whistles’ are needed for the food to cook. If they cook rice they will say “after the first whistle, leave it for two more whistles”! meaning the number of times that the pressure builds up and the steam lifts up the weight valve on the top of the cooker.
We read in one of the newspapers that pressure cookers are enjoying a popularity surge of popularity in the UK and so in case you are a person with a cooker we thought that we would send you a couple of good Indian recipes that can be cooked in your cooker. Rather than talking in terms of how many whistles are needed we have put the setting needed for your timer!
