Bonus: you can plug it in anywhere, so you can keep cooking smells entirely out of the house if you want.
A pressure cooker, a slow cooker, a rice cooker, all in one. This is the model I used for many years, but there are fancy ones now which might be worth looking into—it seems like they can do programmable temperature for sous vide among other things.
Update: I now have the Pro (which at least at the time was very comparable in price)
Things I love about the Pro:
- It has a flat bottom so you can brown things directly on an electric or induction(?) stovetop
- It has handles for lifting the liner out — the handles also stop it from spinning while you stir
- Most importantly for me: it allows me to set specifics for both the amount of time to cook under pressure as well as the amount of time to naturally release and whether or not to “keep warm” afterwards and it remembers my last settings, so it’s made my rice routine a breeze even without taking advantage of the presets…
The Instant Pot has a cult following, but honestly, I've gotten a ton of value just from being able to make rice quickly & easily as well as making really wonderful bone broths.
For jasmine rice I do roughly one-to-one after rinsing the rice until the water is no longer cloudy, add salt and butter, and cook on high pressure for 3 minutes, natural release for 10, fluff it and it’s ready to go.
(you can also adjust rice by adding orange zest and juice or bullion, or even bone broth to come full circle)
I also now have a clear glass lid which has been great for remembering that there’s leftover rice (we eat it so quickly that I don’t bother storing it in the fridge).
I may have mentioned it elsewhere, but Trader Joes has organic meats that are incredibly reasonably priced. Chicken legs can be roasted in the oven (I recommend using the broiler pan) eaten with rice, and then you can get the bones going (ideally you'd be able to also add fresh bones from the butcher). I use a cleaver to make sure I'm getting the good stuff from inside the bones.
(Just FYI, my favorite store-bought bone broth is refrigerated from Roli Roti — it has enough gelatin that it’s like jello in the fridge and it doesn’t have any onions or garlic, for those who are sensitive. Imagine also has a couple bone broths that are shelf-stable (no refrigeration needed) and there are a few specific jars of Better Than Bouillon that are garlic and onion-free.)
I'm a huge fan of Samin Nosrat, who inspired my page Advice: Add salt, fat, acid, (heat), & texture and this is a modified version of her chicken stock recipe:
This recipe for an intense, lovely chicken stock is full of deep flavors and provides a perfect base for soup. Feel free to use leftover bones from roast chicken, but at least half of the bones should be raw. Ask your butcher for feet, heads and wings, which are all high in gelatin and will lend body to the stock. Once cooled, freeze the stock.
Ice cube trays are good, but The best tupperware is also useful, depending on your purpose. (I also freeze in ziplock bags as well as mason jars.)
Ingredients
Preparation
Put the bones and water in a large stockpot. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring the stock to a boil again, then turn down to a simmer. (Vinegar helps draw out nutrients and minerals from the bones into the stock.)
Simmer the stock for 6 to 8 hours, covered, keeping an eye on it to make sure it stays at a simmer. Strain the stock through a fine-meshed sieve. Let cool.
Scrape the fat that rises to the top. (Save it in the fridge or freezer for matzoh ball soup.) Refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
Updates:
My household has been sick this year so I’ve been cranking out bone broth.
The recipe I’ve been using is modified from America’s test kitchen’s Best Gut Health Cookbook. I mostly use 2-3lbs organic chicken backs from Whole Foods, chopped into 2” pieces with my cleaver (I’m still trying to figure out how to get the meat counter staff to hack the backs more than a couple times for me) though I think I should be using chicken feet and wings for more gelatin. I brown them in the instant pot directly on the stove in 3 batches, toss in the coarsely chopped green parts of 2 leeks and sauté them in the fat and fond until they’re soft. Then I dump the chicken all back in, cover, and turn down to low for 20min while the chicken releases its juices, stirring periodically to scrape up all the browned bits. Then I lift the pot (thank goodness for the handles on the Pro!) and place it in its home in the Instant Pot, add water to the max fill line (I have a 6qt model) add 2-3 bay leaves, a tablespoon of whatever vinegar I have handy, and 1/4 tsp salt (not really sure why — I definitely have to salt the broth when I’m ready to use it). I pressure cook it on high for 8 hours*, strain the broth off (and keep it cool in the fridge to wait), add water back up to the fill line, and pressure cook it for another 12hrs before combining the first and second sets of strained broth. I let them cool again, put them in the fridge, collect the fat, and then freeze the broth and the fat.
Another thing I’ve learned
I use a fair amount of the skimmed fat as the liquid for the chicken that I sous vide for making chicken noodle soup (season a pound or two of chicken with salt and pepper, add 1/4 cup chicken fat to a gallon ziplock, sous vide at 150F for 1-3hrs and then shred). We have a gluten sensitivity, so I’ve been using these delicious rice noodles (they carry them packed individually with a miso mix at Thrive as well). If you don’t use the fat, freeze it. If you don’t have it, sub in olive oil.
My blood pressure is low, so I’ve been making sure I get enough salt — broth is a great example of a food that is way better when it’s plenty salty. When I’m serving broth without further flavors or excitement (for drinking or for chicken noodle soup), I first add better than bouillon and then consider adding salt. When I’m worried about sodium intake, I use lo-salt. When I’m worried about low blood pressure, I use grey celtic sea salt.
*(Instant Pot Pro trick: if you go down below 0 minutes, it will send you to 8hrs as the max rather than needing to slowly tick up from 3 minutes (which is the default mine is set to because I make rice in it all the time).
(I don’t know how I feel about it yet, but I have started to explore Chinese dietary energetics and Andrew seems like a reasonable person to listen to on topics like this)