Salsa Verde Soup For The Instant Pot

 This is a simulacrum of a soup I encountered at Local Lime in Little Rock. Theirs uses pork, but otherwise the flavors are remarkably similar.

• 1 lb. chicken thighs. I have used cooked turkey in the past as well, and it makes a great way to clean up Thanksgiving leftovers.
• 2 quarts chicken stock.
• 16 oz. salsa verde. I like Herdez mild, but go with whatever your heat tolerance is.
• 1 storage yellow onion, sliced.
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced.
• 1-2 stalks celery, sliced.
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp. cumin
• Cilantro, leaves stripped
• Avocado, sliced (as garnish)

Brown the chicken thighs for 8 minutes a side on medium-high heat in olive oil. Place remaining ingredients in the Instant Pot, and cook for 20 minutes on high.

Live Animal Air Transport For Dummies (And Rescues)

Air transport of live animals is a recurring subject for rescues. As it seems I keep rewriting some version of this post, usually to would-be adopters considering how to get a potential dog from where she is to them, I'm finally breaking down and publishing it here.

A New Era In Parvovirus Treatment

 I've had an interest in canine parvovirus ever since we got our Libby in 2009. She was born to a Montana hoarder whose "merchandise" was free-breeding, and whose property was riddled with that virus. A serial killer of puppies caught between the waning of maternal antibodies and the maturation of the pup's own immune system, death rates among untreated dogs is 71%, a horrifying figure. (Others cite a number of 91%.)

There's no real treatment for pups infected before they can get a vaccination. Or more accurately, there wasn't until fairly recently, when Kindred Biosciences announced a monoclonal antibody treatment with a claimed 100% efficacy. The drug was approved earlier this year on a "conditional license" by the USDA. It will be interesting to see whether the claimed 100% figure holds up over time, but this is almost unalloyed good news.

Braised Whole Chicken In The Pressure Cooker

This one’s lifted from the website that used to be called Hip Pressure Cooking (now Hip Cooking), but since lost in the rebranding. I also think it needed some adjustment to make it work a little better.

Ingredients: 

• One 3-to-4 lb. whole chicken. I like to keep a couple fryers in the freezer, so this means some lead time; best to defrost overnight, or in water for the impatient.
• 4 fresh rosemary sprigs, though I just used a 1/2 teaspoon of dried.
• 3 fresh sage sprigs; again, 1/2 teaspoon (really, to taste) of dried
• 3 fresh thyme sprigs (the same)
• 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. (Who are we kidding about this? See below.)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 cup water, beer, or stock, as needed

Rinse the chicken inside and out and pat dry with paper towels. If there are giblets or the neck, you can use them to flavor the braise, so rinse them off, too, and set them aside.

Reserve one rosemary sprig for a garnish (ignore this if you use dried). Pull or snip the leaves from the three remaining sprigs, and also from the sage and thyme sprigs. Chop all the herb leaves. Grate the zest from the lemon, and set the lemon aside. Mix the chopped herbs, lemon zest, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a small bowl and then rub the mixture all over the outside and inside of the chicken. Alteration: set the mixture aside, because we will next...

Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, and add enough vegetable oil to coat the pan. (Alteration: What planet do these people live on that one tablespoon is enough to thoroughly coat a large sauté pan?) Add the chicken and cook until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes per side. Alteration: Now add the herb mixture to the outside of the chicken. It will stick better to the bird and you will get more of it in the finished product. In fact, next time I do this, I might double the herb quantities, because it didn’t go very far. I strongly recommend nitrile gloves for this operation, especially right after frying the outside of the bird.

Squeeze the juice from the lemon and strain it into a measuring cup. Add water (or beer or stock) to equal one cup (or the minimum required by your cooker to reach pressure minus 1/4 cup — the chicken will release a lot of juice so the liquid needed to bring this dish to pressure is a little less than usual) and pour into the pressure cooker base. Add the bay leaf to the cooker along with the chicken giblets and neck if using.

If you have a trivet, support the chicken on it. Lower the chicken into the pressure cooker and pour any juices remaining in the sauté pan.

Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker. Cook at high pressure for 20 minutes/stovetop or 26-28 minutes/electric (or nonstandard stovetop). Whn the time is up, open the pressure cooker with the Normal Release method.

Lift or slide the chicken out of the cooker and transfer to a serving platter, cover tightly with aluminum foil. Optional: for a golden skin, transfer to a baking dish and heat in a broiler for a few minutes right before serving.

Meanwhile, return the pressure cooker base to high heat and boil the contents until reduced to a sauce consistency, about five minutes. Chop the leaves from the remaining rosemary sprig. Pour the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer over the chicken, and sprinkle with the reserved rosemary. (Alteration: I was hungry, so this didn’t happen. But it sounds good.)

Soy-Garlic-Honey Beef Marinade

Adapted from Simply Recipes, but I hate their auto-play website so much I simply refuse to deal with it anymore. I have made this dozens of times, and most recently have changed it to reflect the large quantities I need when smoking beef ribs. It’s probably most important there to cut off any silver skin before marinating, as well as as much surface fat as possible to maximize the amount of meat surface area exposed to the marinade. I like to use the largest semi-disposable plastic containers I can find for the marination vessel; Rubbermaid makes some very nice 4-5 quart ones that work very well for this application. Consequently, I have adjusted upwards the amount needed for this recipe, and rather dramatically increased the amount and kind of vinegar. Here in the South, you can find apple cider vinegar in bulk quantities, as it is a base for many kinds of barbecue sauces. It also works nicely here, as well.

•  1-1/3 c. olive oil
• 8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed (I always use the garlic press)
• 1 c. apple cider vinegar
• 1 c. honey
• 1-1/3 c. soy sauce
• 2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

In a large steel vessel, combine all ingredients, and mix with an immersion blender. (Or, if you have a capacious enough blender, combine and mix there.) For flank steak, you can just immerse the steak in the marinating vessel. Ribs need to have the silver skin removed and as much surface fat as you can get off without stripping too much meat, then set to marinate. Let the meat sit overnight in the fridge, and cook as you would normally.

Tacos al Pastor For The Instant Pot

Adapted from Steven Raichlen’s recipe at Epicurious for use in the Instant Pot and other pressure cookers. As with so many kinds of marination, surface area is key, and it is a place where I think pressure cooking really does a much better job infusing flavor than conventional cooking.

• 1 large white onion, halved
• 1 pineapple, peeled, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. I ended up using a small can of pineapple rounds. You could also probably get away with canned pineapple bits or crushed pineapple. Note 2019-05-11: I have been buying 14 oz. sized produce section pineapple chunks, of which around 10 oz or so works pretty well. Much more than this tends to invite burning.
• 1/2 cup fresh orange juice
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1/4 cup guajillo chile powder. If this is unavailable, you can make this by stemming and seeding 6 dried guajillo chiles and running them through a spice grinder. I ended up using a much smaller amount — maybe a couple tablespoons — but as the guajillo chile is one of the milder varieties (2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units), it can take a bit to get to heat. More adventurous cooks may wish to save the seeds and reintroduce them prior to adding to the pressure cooker.
• 3 garlic cloves, halved. As ever, I incline to run them through the garlic press first.
• 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 large or 2 small chipotle chiles and 1 to 2 teaspoons adobo from canned chipotle chiles in adobo. I substituted a teaspoon of chipotle chile paste.
• 1 2 1/2-to 3-pound boneless pork loin, cut into 1/2-inch slices. (I used a 4-lb. pork butt cut into 1” slabs, and increased the rest of the ingredients by 50%.)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• For stovetop pressure cooker only: 2 cups of water
• Corn tortillas
• Smoky Two-Chile Salsa. (We did without.)
• Lime wedges

Coarsely dice the onion, reserving half. Take 2-3 pineapple rounds from the can, and chop them roughly. (Or, substitute about 1/3 cup of bits/crushed pineapple.) In a blender, combine half the onion, pineapple, orange juice, water (if using), and the next seven ingredients; puree until smooth.

Pour half the pureed mix into the Instant Pot. Add pork, and then add the remaining puree. Start cooking covered at the zero pressure setting, keeping an eye out for steam. Remove the cover and stir. (This helps to minimize burning.) Re-cover, and cook for 80 minutes at high pressure, or 55 minutes on a stovetop pressure cooker. Quick release pressure, and using tongs, take the meat out and shred it using forks, or Bear Paws. Remove the remaining liquid, run it through a screen (the meticulous will want to also use a chinois), and defat it using a fat separator, returning it to the meat. Mix the other half of the onion and cilantro (optional) and serve with lime wedges.

2020-06-08: Add instructions for minimizing burning.

Red Bean & Andouille Soup

Being mainly cribbed from the Emeril Lagasse recipe with a few modifications of my own to make things work a little easier.

• 6 oz. andouille sausage or ham, diced. I recommend the andouille sausage, which gives the soup its resulting punch (there's very little actual heat in the added cayenne pepper below), but less-heatproof palates may prefer the ham, and I think I may yet try it this way for Helen. I used Schreiner's, from the Sunday farmer's market, and can't be beat.
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil. I used peanut oil, which is my favorite oil for frying, but some people may be allergic; grapeseed or, if you are careful, olive oil should be fine. (The original recipe called for 2 teaspoons, which I find unreasonably small, and in fact I just poured enough in the pan to coat it. One reason that might be so is Schreiner's sausages are exceeding lean, and don't leave much, if any, fat in the pan.)
• One small yellow storage onion, chopped. The original called for 3/4 cup, but that's half a small onion, and I like onions, so there.
• 1/2 bell pepper, chopped. I ended up using a sweet red pepper.
• 6 tbsp. chopped celery. I ended up using a small stalk, probably about half again more than the recipe called for.
• 1 bay leaf.
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp. minced garlic. (Horrible confession: we ran out, so I had to make do with garlic powder.)
• 3 16-oz cans red beans. I used kidney beans, but azuki beans work for this as well.
• 32 oz. of chicken stock. One reason I wanted to make this recipe is because I had a bunch of stock about to expire.
• 1 cup cooked long-grain rice, as garnish
• 2 tbsp. green onion, as garnish. I omitted both garnishes.
• 1 lb medium shrimp, shelled and deveined. I was originally going to make a gumbo, but the volumes of rice and flour dissuaded me from that path.
• 2 tbsp. butter. I used ghee, which is nearly indestructible as butter goes, and because we have it lying around; but regular butter works fine, too.

In a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat, cook the sausage until browned and the fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

To the fat in the pan, add the oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, bell peppers, bay leaf, salt, and cayenne and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft. (Sorry, browning onions takes about 20 minutes, not 4. Try again, Emeril.) Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the red beans and their juices, cooked sausage, and the chicken stock, stir well to mix, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thick and reduced slightly, about 30 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, set the butter in a frying pan on medium-low heat. Once the pan has heated up, fry the shrimp. Remove the soup from the heat, add the shrimp, and discard the bay leaf. (If desired, the soup can be pureed at this point using a hand-held immersion blender, or in batches in a food processor.)

To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top each portion with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the cooked rice. Garnish each serving with scallions and serve immediately.

Pressure Cooker Update 2018-01-15: Several matters:

• Dry beans, IMO, are about half the volume of cooked beans, so substitute 3 c. dried beans. Follow directions below.
• Sausage was Aidells Cajun Style Andouille (UPC 764014458058), which is well under Helen's threshold for capsaicin (and barely noticeable on my own palate).
• Red beans are supposed to cook for 25-30 minutes @ 15 psi with natural release per Pressure Cooking Perfection, the dried bean cooking data I have found most consistently useful. I split the time at 2 minutes "presoak" (quick release), followed by 20 minutes (natural release), followed by 10 minutes at pressure for most ingredients (stock, sausage, vegetables, beans, but NOT shrimp).
• The Instant Pot operates at 11 psi, which means the times above should be increased by about 50%.
• 2018-12-15: Make sure to add the shrimp after depressurizing the soup. It will need to cool down anyway, and the shrimp will help with that.