lusentoj / rent-feelings

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lusentoj

29 December 2017 @ 01:57 pm

drying

here's what i bought for 100-150 yen:

boiling the sweet potatoes in my pressure cooker - you're supposed to steam them but i have no steamer...

peel them, cut them into slices. most people are using an egg slicer but i just used a knife... doesn't actually take that long. i don't know why "exactly" you're supposed to peel them but the peel can be randomly really bitter (and on one storebought baked sweet potato, one bite out of the whole thing tasted like soap)

hanging indoors

outdoors (and there's my yellow work uniform... not that i've gone to work much)

the most common dried stuff i've seen so far is squid, daikon, sweet potato, and persimmon now that they've been in season. but apparently you can dry meat in general with this kind of rack as well. i'm going to the neighbourhood 100 yen shop now to see if i can get any more useful stuff... i saw that there's special aluminum foil specifically for baking sweet potatoes, also you can put rocks in your pot and make sweet potatoes "on the rocks" like that...

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gatheringrivers on December 31st, 2017 12:38 pm (UTC)

What site are the pictures from? They're not showing to me, but it might be my 2342343 different settings. :)

If you have a steamer rack (I recommend one of these if you can find it) PLUS about a cup of water in the bottom of your pressure cooker (I'm assuming you have something like this?) and you HAVE a steamer. :)

My InstantPot says use "manual", "high pressure", 8 minutes, and then immediately release pressure by cranking the valve to let the steam escape.

Since you want to slice them, you'll probably want more like 5 minutes.

If yours is just a stovetop/hobtop one, then it'll be a bit more challenging: if it has two pressure settings, use the higher one, if it has 3 settings, use the middle. Set timer (try 8 minutes) once it gets up to pressure.

I've only cooked spuds in the InstantPot by themselves. All other occasions have been with meat and cabbage, so naturally a longer timeframe because meat.

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lusentoj on January 1st, 2018 03:18 am (UTC)

the pics're from my twitter, i've noticed they don't show up if you're on private browsing mode on firefox but other than that i dunno what could be wrong... i don't have a steamer yet but i'm gonna get one at the 100 yen shop next time i go to the big one. my pressure cooker's more like this, meaning it has no pressure settings at all (but it seems aaaaaaall the americans are using the "instant pot" based on when i try to search for pressure cooker recipes!!). so i cook the potatoes for 13-15 minutes depending on how many pieces i've cut them into.

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gatheringrivers on January 1st, 2018 10:38 am (UTC)

Ah! Private browsing mode's gotta be it then. No worries, I'll remember that for the future. :)

The InstantPot has become a huge hit because it can do SO many things in one item.

We *originally* picked one up simply because it was - at the time - the ONLY slow cooker capable thing that had a steel liner. I was replacing a triple set of 3 ceramic slow cookers (a 3-in-1 thing, great for party dips, not so good for two people with big appetites) because I got tired of the ceramic making my food taste funny after about 12 hours.

For like 3 years all I did with it was "pour in ingredients, close lid, hit 'soup' button, come back in an hour".

Then we got the 2nd one because Amazon had a bigger size than the first. THEN I discovered I can make easy-peel hard boil eggs and make mashed potatoes in under 15 minutes.

So.... I can understand the popularity. Less cook time = less time running the hob/stove = less power usage = less hassle. :)

There's a number of InstantPot knockoffs, too, but no idea how good they are long term.

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