I order vet stuff from Pet Shed, Dawg, you might want to check them out although I suspect my quantities are WAY higher than yours to justify ordering stuff from Australia!
Ha, at the risk of sounding completely senseless...so, you put the chicken in a basket, add how much water and then what, turn on the stove to high and wait for it to explode?
Details, please! I've cooked chicken sort of like you've described in my crockpot, but the pressure cooker sort of freaks me out.
Sarah, I want you to avoid all explosions.
First, carefully read your instructions. Does your cooker cook at 15 psi? The Indian cookware maker Hawkins suggest a minimum of 1 cup water to get up to pressure, and 1/2 additional cups for each ten minutes of cooktime. I have a plastic McDonalds glass from a super sized iced tea- for most steamed things I just put in that glass-full. Hawkins has a good website with lots of Indian recipes. Apparently pressure cookers are very popular in India because of fuel saving.
You turn heat on high until operating pressure is reached, (you will know because steam will be escaping from the regulator valve). Then turn it down until just a bit of steam is escaping as you go along. Too vigorous steam escape means you are wasting water and increasing the chance to go dry, no steam escaping means you are not pressure cooking. If you have not cut the heat and no steam is escaping after it has once come up to pressure, you are likely out of water and should take the pot off the heat, wait for the pressure to dissipate, and open up and add more water. Your directions will tell exactly how to use the thing safely.
When I steam meat usually the basket will be above the water level, so the chicken or meat cooks solely in the steam.
For lunch I cooked collards and other greens with ham hocks (and onion and carrot and chiles, etc.), down in the water.
Worked great, though I think I can shorten cook time next time around. I didn't expect this but the carrots were perfect and the greens a little softer than I usually like- I thought the greens would need more time than the carrots.
It is hard to stuff a whole TJ bag of greens into my pretty large 8 qt cooker, but when you take off the top you wonder where they all went!
Ha
