One of the kitchen gadget, rather I should say vessel that I can not live without is pressure cooker and its separators. When I first came to US, I didn’t bring any pressure cooker. My husband said that rice cooker and microwave are sufficient, and we don’t need pressure cooker. So as a obedient wife (??), I didn’t bring my pressure cooker. We both had lot of space in our baggages. Both of us could carry 64 kgs each, but can you believe we together bought 60kgs. Within a month, I realized I need pressure cooker. Me and my hubby would have fought about that for zillion times. Every time when I need to pull his legs, I bring up this topic.
So next time when I went to India, I came back with 2 pressure cookers. One 3 litre and one 7 litres with its separators. These separators are really really helpful, especially for south Indian cooking where rice is the staple.
What are these separators? Vessels, like tiffin carrier(either 2 piece or 3 piece) which can be kept inside the pressure cooker and used to cook multiple food together. Both Hawkins and prestige brand has these separators. The one I have is prestige brand.
I usually keep rice in the bottom vessel, dhal and veggies in the other two. If your rice, dhal and veggies are done, then your cooking is half done. During winter, I pressure cook my rice, dhal and veggies in the night and leave the food inside the pressure cooker itself. Morning, I just need to do the real cooking, either sambhar or rasam and curry. I don’t need to wait for dhal to be cooked or veggies to be cooked. It saves a whole lot of time.
If I have leftovers from the previous day, I cook rice and dhal in the morning before going to work and do the remaining cooking in the evening.
Hi,
This is first time stopping here…your blog is awesome…so many good recipies.I just want to ask about this post…whether rice and veggies take same time to cook?
Hi Lathiya, Welcome to my space and thanks a lot for your wonderful comment. Coming to your question, its depending upon the veggies pa. so this is what I do, I keep rice, toor dal and if I am preparing kootu like chow chow kootu or cabbage or noolkol kootu with moong dal I keep them all together. Sometimes I do kondakadalai or black eye peas kuzhambu in that case also I keep everything together. But veggies like pumpkin, beans gets cooked faster so two whistles are enough. But for rice you need min 3 unless it is basmati. Hope this helps. Please feel free to email or comment if you have any other questions. Thanks again.
Hi Vidhya,
Thank u for the quick response.That is really helpful.As I also live in CA,do you have any idea where can I get these separators here.Thank u again.
Hi Lathiya, Will send you an email pa. Thanks again
Hello! I also would like to know where to get the separators. Is it a tiffin? Thanks in advance!
I bought them from India. But Amazon has it too. Here is the link for what I have – http://amzn.to/2jr6ciK
I didn’t get your comment about Tiffin. sorry
Do you just leave the pressure cooker out with cooked dal and rice? Wont it get spoiled?
Hi.. Welcome to my space. I live CA and the weather here is pretty good. So if I leave them outside its ok for me. But in chennai I have tried and up to 7 hrs and it was ok pa
Hello mam…thanks for the valuable information. I wanted to know if ve can cook rajmah(red lobia) and rice together in this cooker as both have different preparation time …
Just soak the red lobia for 3 to 4 hours and cook on the top container. That should help.