I’ve always been a little scared when my pressure cooker starts whistling. when it comes to full pressure, this little yellow button pops up and there’s a high-pitched noise that makes me think the top is going to explode. Apparently, this used to be a real concern, but these days pressure cookers usually don’t do that (be wary of buying grandmothers’ old cookers on Kijiji or Craigslist).
Except the week I got my cooker, I put the lid down and the black pressure gauge fell out. It went back in, though, and it still seemed to come to pressure fine, so I figured it was nothing. Until someone who’s been pressure cooking for longer than I have came to my house to make soup and said that a fully pressurized cooker shouldn’t be whistling that much.
If the pro was scared, I was scared.
So I watched some YouTube videos and took the lid apart. Lo and behold, the bottom of the pressure valve had cracked and was stuck to the lid of the pot. It was a clean, almost horizontal break. So essentially my food had been steaming at high pressure, but not actually pressure cooking. I’d been wondering why so many of my recipes ended up with burnt bottoms – turns out, the liquid was all evaporating. I’d figured I’d just had the heat up too high.
Fortunately, nothing exploded in the year since I got my pot. I’d fairly successfully made chicken carnitas tacos, risotto and soups galore. Thank goodness I hadn’t tried to do any pressure canning, like fish or meat sauces. I’d have to chuck them, and that would break my heart a little.
Now apparently, Fagor, the company that made my cooker, has replacement parts, but according to a couple online forums, they rarely have the replacement pressure valve for this cooker in stock. And my problem seems to be a common problem. 
I’ve been getting this message for more than a month.
The pressure cooker is not cheap. It also seems that Fagor isn’t making this model anymore…sure seems like a defect.
So now I’m waiting for the part to be available. And in the meantime, I can’t make this amazing soup recipe:
Pressure-Caramelized Carrot Soup
The Modernist Cuisine Cooking Lab in Bellevue, Washington taught me a wonderful thing about what happens when you add baking soda to food in a pressure cooker. It increases the pH of the cooker’s contents and speeds up the Maillard reaction – the browning reaction of foods that adds a caramelized note. In the case of this soup, the carrots brown deeply, turning the soup into (vegan or non-began) buttery, caramel-y heaven. There are a bunch of versions of the recipe online, but I went with the Food & Wine verion because I like their testers and it’s less fussy than the Modernist Cuisine version. The quantities vary a lot, so stick with this one to be safe. You need about two bags of carrots to make the juice, or buy carrot juice at a store. And don’t worry about the small amount of liquid in the pressure cooker. It’s supposed to be that way (as long as your cooker is working properly!!).
Leave a Reply