January 17: Lamb Vindaloo (In a Pressure Cooker!)

I’d say it’s Vindaloo-esque. And my first thrilling date with a pressure cooker.

New mantra in the house: Pressure cookers are slow cookers for people with procrastination problems. I realized a little too late that we could have lamb tonight. Why? Because Brady is at the firestation, and he hates lamb, so I never get to make lamb. Luckily, I remembered that somewhere in the hoarder’s mausoleum that is our garage, there was a pressure cooker.

After horrifying my daughter by spending 30 minutes rearranging 14 years of accumulated crap in the garage – including the unearthing of tutus that she probably didn’t want to picture her step father in, and great clouds of dust from years of Burning Man – I found it. It was under the chair that was under the wire book-case that was under the paddle boards that were under the tents. It took both of us, but we got it. 

I’m not going to pretend to be brave here. The pressure cooker scared the crap out of me. Which is why it’s been in a box in the garage for 2 years since it was given to us by Chief Jose. I had visions of blowing things up, or least blowing myself up. But who can resist the lure of spoon-tender slow-cooked style meat in 40 minutes? Not me.

Lamb Vindaloo seemed like the perfect place to start. With cauliflower rice, of course, because, you know, Whole 30. All in all, it came out great. 40 minutes, start to finish, meat so tender it fell apart. Veggies TOO tender, so there’s some work to do finding the magic number.

I would also say that I think the flavors would have popped more had it been slow-cooked, so I think I need to up the spice levels in the pressure-cooker. That said, it was good, so if your curious what my starting point was, it was roughly this:

2 pounds of lamb, cubed by my lovely butcher
2 onions, chunked up
However many baby carrots were in my fridge
6 dried chili peppers
8 cloves garlic
3 tsp. fresh ginger
1 tsp (ish). ground cinnamon,ground cloves, ground turmeric
1 tablespoon coriander 1 tablespoon cumin
1 tsp. fenugreek
Salt it after the fact…..
I can of coconut milk
Same amount of chicken stock

I sauteed all the spices in ghee first, then added the meat and browned it a bit. Then I added veggies and liquid and screwed the top on. Set it at “10,” and cooked 10 minutes once it was at pressure. Then let it cool 30 minutes. And BOOM. It was so insanely easy.

While it was cooking, made the cauli rice. Put the florets in a Cuisinart and run it until it’s rice texture. Pan fry in ghee, with salt, until some of it starts to get a little golden.

It wasn’t DELICIOUS, but it was really fucking good. Next time, I’ll skip the broth and do more coconut milk. And probably up the spices a bit, add tomatoes. I would also do the meat for about 5 minutes first, then open it and add the veggies.

This was definitely the first of many. I think I’m in love with the pressure cooker.