Best Life - April 2009

my craft
nils noren
Under Pressure
An ace chef’s secret kitchen
appliance will have you cooking
hundreds of meals faster

Enter the kitchen of one of the world’s best

restaurants—Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli in

Spain, say, or Thomas Keller’s French

Laundry in Napa Valley—and you might

wonder if some of the equipment came

from a laboratory. Chefs are using tools and tech-

niques such as liquid nitrogen and sous vide, popu-

larizing what I call high-tech cooking. I teach many of

these methods at the prestigious French Culinary

Institute, but very few home kitchens (mine included)

are equipped for this kind of exploratory cuisine. After

all, who has the money or space for a refrigerator-size

$1,000 vacuum sealer, an essential device for sous

vide? But one high-tech tool I do use at home several

times a week is a pressure cooker. These appliances

cost about $100 and are now equipped with safety

features that prevent them from exploding like those

from the ’50s were prone to do. In a regular pot or

pan, food can get only as hot as the boiling point for

water: 212°F. But in a pressure cooker, water boils at

closer to 250°F, and that temperature increase neu-

tralizes the side effects of certain foods without dis-

turbing their flavors. You’d never eat a whole head of

garlic, for instance, because it causes terrible breath.

But a pressure cooker’s high temperature breaks

down the sulfur compounds that are the culprit. Now

you can use heaps of garlic to whip up the best

mashed potatoes your family will have ever tasted.

Another favorite dish of mine is horseradish-and-

salmon soup, minus the horseradish’s heat. Not only

will a pressure cooker help you achieve results that

are otherwise impossible, but it can also be used to

QUICK CUISINE Pressure cookers help

cook food much faster, saving you hours in the
you do more with less.
kitchen when preparing your favorite stew or brisket.

Here’s a simple recipe to get you started. AS TOLD

TO JOEL WEBER

Nils Noren, 42, is the vice president of culinary and pastry arts at the French Culinary Institute.

the plan Use a pressure cooker to create the best mashed potatoes you’ve ever tasted

Pommes Puree

1 cup peeled garlic cloves 3½ cups milk (divided) ½ cup mustard seed

2 cups apple cider vinegar

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes 2 oz. butter

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Fresh chives, finely minced

1 I Put the peeled garlic cloves and 3 cups of milk into a pressure cooker. Cook under full pressure for 20 minutes, strain off the milk, and puree the garlic until smooth. Set aside.

2 I Add the mustard seed and apple cider vinegar to the pressure cooker. Cook under full pressure for 20 minutes. Add the sugar while the mixture is hot. Strain and set aside.

3 I Peel, wash, and cut the potatoes into large,

even pieces. Place them in a pot, cover with water, add salt, and cook until tender. Drain well and pass through a food mill or mash with a whisk.