The Kitchen Pot That’s Hot

But, what are these fast cookers great for — and not so great at making

AARP The Magazine, March 30, 2018 | Comments: 0

Coconut curry chicken is prepared in an Instant Pot cooker.

KARSTEN MORAN/New York Times

Dinner made easier, thanks to the latest kitchen gadget.

En español | Move over, Crock-pots and pressure cookers. The multipot has merged your best traits into a programmable one-stop cooking tool. This appliance — brands include Instant Pot, Breville and Fagor ($80 to $250) — makes short shrift of such tedious tasks as stewing beef, braising a lamb shank or even fermenting yogurt. Just plug it in, add ingredients, tap a button or two, and it does everything else — generally faster than its forebears.

Great for making

Chicken and dumplings
Mac and cheese
Curry
Rice pilaf
Shrimp scampi

Getty Images

Lemon pudding
Mussels with wine
Polenta
French onion soup
Crème brûlée

Not so great for

A whole chicken
Anything crunchy
Anything crispy

Getty Images

(Note: To avoid food explosions, read the manual! Also, certain Instant Pot models were recalled for overheating.)

Melissa Clark, author of Dinner in an Instant, contributed to this report and shared a recipe that can be done with a fast or slow cooker.

A look at some culinary curiosities of the past

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PHOTO BY: Stefan Cristian Cioata/Getty Images

Pizza stone

A perfect pie is always a bit of a struggle without a super-hot pizza oven. But preheating a stone slab in your regular kitchen oven ups the heat factor and absorbs moisture to get that crust oh so crispy. If only this process didn’t add to the cooking time when you want pizza now! That and the cleanup hassle relegated this to a once-in-a-while novelty item.
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images

Rice cooker

Cooking rice on a stove can be tricky (unless it’s instant rice, but that’s another story). Set the wrong heat level or leave it on too long, and you’re left with a burned, sticky mess. Then along came the rice cooker, which let you “set it and forget it.” No more fast-dialing that Chinese delivery restaurant down the street.
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images

Crepe maker

Sometime in the 1970s or '80s, crepes had their moment in the U.S. There were sweet crepes filled with fruit for breakfasts or desserts, and savory crepes filled with meat and vegetables for dinner. Then everyone realized what a pain it was to use a dedicated appliance to make a thin pancake that wrapped around other food, and the crepe fad ended.
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images

Fondue pot

The height of dinner-party chic in the 1970s involved the communal activity of dunking breads, meats, vegetables or fruit into boiling pots of oil or cheese or chocolate. Then along came the '80s and Trivial Pursuit became a more stimulating group activity. No one felt the need to quasi-cook their food together anymore.
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images

Air popcorn popper

The act of cooking popcorn wasn’t quite as simple as it is today, when you can just place a packet in a microwave and press a button. It used to require a pan and hot oil. Then along came the air popper. Pour some kernels in the machine, turn it on and let its heating element do the work as you put a bowl under the chute. In a time before cell phones, kids would even get some entertainment watching the little treats come flying out. And the top of the unit melted butter. Yum!
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PHOTO BY: Stephen Grant / Alamy Stock Photo

Foreman grill

A former boxer put his name on an indoor clamshell grill in the 1990s, and shilled it on infomercials that promoted its health benefits. The selling point: Its tilted surface allowed fatty grease to run off and into a tray. Regardless of whether that made much of a dietary difference, the item was a hit because it also was generally easy to use — especially when it was too cold outdoors to fire up the real grill.
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PHOTO BY: Getty Images

Panini press

Similar to the Foreman grill, these clamshell devices were marketed as a simple way to make hot, gooey sandwiches. The distinct ridges qualified them as panini, a delicacy of Italian origin. But then we realized that this is basically a fancy way of making a grilled cheese, which Americans have been doing in stove pans since prepackaged singles hit supermarkets. And we mostly said arrivederci to the panini press.
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PHOTO BY: Istock

Wok

Sure, you could make stir-fry in a regular pan. But would it taste the same if it wasn't heated in a big carbon steel cone? The ancient masters say, “Probably.”
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PHOTO BY: Istock

Juicer

Let’s be honest, this isn’t really about making juice. You can buy fresh beverages at the grocery. This is about liquefying all sorts of fruits and vegetables into drinks that make you feel as if you’re downing loads and loads of nutrients in every gulp. And maybe you are. Or maybe you’ve just spent a good sum of money on a machine that needlessly pulverizes everything when you could have reevaluated the foods you eat.
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PHOTO BY: Istock

Bread machine

Make fresh bread at home? You’d need to be some kind of master baker to accomplish something like that. Why not just get a robot to do the work? And that’s essentially what people did in the 1990s. The machine would take premixed ingredients and do all the kneading and baking, and then pop out a hot (although often strangely shaped) loaf. That was fun for a while. But you know that phrase, “the best thing since sliced bread”? This wasn’t that.
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