How to Make Farmhouse Chicken Noodle Soup and Pot Roast in your Pressure Cooker

[Music] today on America's Test Kitchen we're cooking under pressure Becky makes Julia the best farmhouse chicken noodle soup Jack challenges Bridget to a tasting of Gruyere dan dives into pressure cooker science and L makes Bridget the ultimate pressure cooker pot roast it's all coming up right here on America's Test Kitchen pressure cookers are old technology dating all the way back to the 17th century in 1679 French physicist Dennis Pepin invented a faster way to cook using an airtight pot called the steam digester now the steam digester and a modern pressure cooker operate in much the same way although today's pots are much safer and easier to use steam pressure builds inside the pot raising the boiling point of the cooking liquid and speeding up the cooking time so slow cooked foods think short ribs chili or a meaty pasta ragout are done in a fraction of the time today we're sharing two great pressure cooker recipes with you this is fast food redefined [Music] chicken soup is an ideal recipe for the pressure cooker because the pressurized pot extracts more flavor out of the skin meat and bones then can happen in a traditional pot not to mention it reduces the entire cooking down to just 20 minutes and that means you can make chicken soup on a weeknight I know I love this recipe really great rest so I noticed this pressure cooker is one of those newfangled ones it doesn't have the little hat that switches back and forth to tell you how the pressure is doing inside that's right this is the fist ler it's our favorite stovetop pressure cooker pressure cookers today there's nothing to be afraid of there's lots of safety features so you don't need to worry that pressure is gonna make it explode right no more soup on the ceiling no totally safe I promise I have a tablespoon of vegetable oil heating up over medium heat I'm adding one onion chopped fine if you notice the one thing we're not doing is browning the chicken which is what a lot of classic chicken soups do we're actually gonna get the flavor out of the pressure cooker you don't need to brown the chicken we're just gonna cook these onions for about five minutes here we just want them to soften so our onions have been cooking for five minutes now you can see they're starting to get a little bit soft I'm gonna add three cloves of garlic and a teaspoon of fresh thyme super classic for chicken noodle soup right mm-hmm so just thirty seconds for the garlic we just want to cook off that harsh raw garlic flavor now I have 8 cups of water and I love it when a chicken noodle soup recipe starts with water and chicken I mean this is an old-fashioned recipe where you get all the flavor from the chicken itself that's how it's meant to be right okay and then for carrots just sliced up two stalks of celery these are gonna be part of our soup and they're also gonna give some nice flavor to the broth and an ingredient that's a little bit unusual for chicken noodle soup secret ingredient yeah don't tell anybody all of you between us and everyone else two tablespoons of soy sauce so that soy sauce not only adds a little bit of salt but it adds some of that important umami which is a meaty flavor right and I also like it adds a tiny bit of color to the soup so it gives it that nice golden rich color all right and last but not least we need our chicken I have a four pound chicken here it's gonna season it up really good inside and out okay I'm gonna put this into the pressure cooker breast side up that's gonna protect the more delicate breast meat from the direct heat on the bottom of the pan and that way everything will cook evenly make sure to take out those giblets you want to reach into the middle of the chicken and take those out you don't want them to end up in your soup so I'm going to add the lid here and we're going to just squeeze the handle when that pops out you know that it's locked all right so we're gonna bring it up to pressure and then how long does it cook under pressure only 20 minutes so it's been a few minutes and as you can hear and see our pot is up to pressure I can tell us up to pressure because of this little indicator here low pressure you'll see one little white line high pressure you'll see two lines right yeah and most pressure cookers have a very similar technique for determining if they are under high or low pressure that's right so we're gonna let this cook for 20 minutes under high pressure we want to make sure we see a little bit of steam coming out during that 20 minutes and we'll adjust the temperature up or down a little bit just to maintain that steady even pressure throughout the cooking time so once a pot has come up to pressure it's very important to adjust the heat under the pot so just a few wisps of steam come out because if you leave it over high or medium high heat you can actually burn the food inside the pot our chicken spent under high pressure for 20 minutes so I'm gonna turn the heat off and we're gonna do what's called a quick release of the pressure so all that steam is gonna come out pretty quickly just by pushing this button in halfway all right I'm gonna stand back yep that it I never know the first time where the steam is gonna come out and it can be a little messy sometimes so I'm just gonna throw a towel over this just in case it gets a little crazy in here so I'm gonna just push that button halfway in steam will start to come out there we go now we get a quick basil high up the pressure is going away going away we just give it a little shake that's what they say to do one more time so you can get a little more to come out another little last little puff okay so all that steam has been released so we'll push the button all the way now and it'll open up for us Oh Oh smells like really good old-fashioned chicken noodle soup it really does smells amazing so now let's get that chicken out of there that chicken is just fall apart tender so we'll let the chicken sit until it's cool enough to handle cuz I want to shred up that meat so I can put it back in the soup sounds good so there are two ways to release the pressure from a pressure cooker a natural release and a quick release and they are not interchangeable a natural release lets the pressure in the pot dissipate slowly so the food inside can finish cooking at a gentler pace it's perfect for large roasts because it gives the meat fibrous time to unwind and turn tender on the other hand a quick release lets the pressure out as quickly as possible to stop the cooking it's not only faster than the natural release but it's crucial when cooking delicate ingredients like rice or chicken because it prevents them from overcooking so it's been a couple of minutes the chicken is cool enough for me to handle here and we're gonna get rid of the skin and the bones and this is so tender you see the meat just falls right off and I'm gonna use two forks just to shred them into bite-sized pieces like that well I finished doing this if you would skim off any grease from the broth there's just a fine layer of fat here that has risen to the top so I'll just use this ladle just spoon some of it off I'll leave just a little oh so little oh yeah oh yeah I picked this carcass pretty clean you picked it very clean that's impressive it's kind of a fun thing to do the broth is coming right up to a boil here I have four ounces of egg noodles we do want to do it at the last minute because the noodles will become mushy and bloated if we cook them too long yeah what happens to the leftover soup if you leave the noodles in it they kind of blow it up and they absorb every last bit of broth they really do yeah so boiling it the last minutes important and those are only gonna take about five minutes to cook okay so it's been about five minutes our noodles are done so I'm gonna turn off the heat smells incredible almost dinnertime so I'm gonna get that chicken back in the pot really hearty meat from the whole chicken I like how you put the cooked chicken back in off the heat because you need to heat it through but you don't want to cook it any more or else it would turn very dry and mealy that's right we got everything perfectly cooked here we don't want to ruin that at all so here's a quarter cup of chopped fresh parsley mmm just to brighten it up there oh there we go that looks great yeah let me just give it a quick taste and see if it needs any extra salt and pepper I want to be perfect for you I think it's just right so good so good all right I have my bowl waiting all right you are ready I am ready I just love that smell oh it smells like home so comforting yeah ah it's such a rich flavor and I love that it just starts with water and a chicken and you get this amazing broth it really is incredible but really this is more flavor than you could get out of a chicken and some water in a traditional pot this is delicious well done thank you for the best chicken noodle soup but use a pressure cooker simply saute a few aromatics add water in a chicken and let it rip on high pressure for 20 minutes is that easy from our Test Kitchen to your kitchen the ultimate recipe for farmhouse chicken noodle soup you can get this recipe all the recipes from this season along with our tastings testings and selected episodes on our website America's Test Kitchen calm the water in this pot is boiling which means it has enough energy to overcome the air pressure above it and turn to vapor here in Boston at sea level water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit but one mile up in Denver Colorado where the air pressure is lower water boils at just 203 degrees the boiling point of water is dependent upon air pressure inside this pressure cooker where the air pressure is about double what it is at sea level water boils at a whopping 250 degrees Fahrenheit that higher temperature means shorter cooking times now all pressure cookers have the same basic design a thick base that helps distribute heat evenly along the bottom of the pot a semi sealed lid with a rubber gasket in a valve that regulates the pressure inside as the pot heats up the pressure inside builds trapped by that sealed lid and maintained by the valve the water molecules inside need more energy to turn into vapor which increases the temperature inside the pot that super hot moist cooking environment transfers heat to the surface of the food rapidly cooking it faster than would ever be possible in our regular Dutch oven so why use a pressure cooker the simple answer is that it's faster but the results really speak for themselves take a look at these two pot roasts now both were cooked for one hour this one inside of a Dutch oven this one inside of our pressure cooker the Dutch oven roast is way underdone and really tough the pressure cooker pot roast is fall apart tender and super moist and that right there is the power of the pressure cooker some call it the great Gruyere war for three years the French and Swiss battle for the right to label their own Greer with the distinguished label of Apple SEO Elgin Protege or AOP now in 2010 the Swiss prevailed and Jack is here to lead us through those spoils of war this is not gonna take three years okay good we're not gonna fight and thank you for saying all the hard French words no problem there you go you have won cheese from Switzerland we tasted five different gree airs from Switzerland they were all amazing okay so I felt like you should just get one of them thank you so much and then you have three domestic options all right so you could start snacking here what we love about Gris air is that not only is it a great table cheese but it is a great cooking cheese we have dozens and dozens of recipes in the Test Kitchen that we created over the years for casseroles for pasta dishes where we use Gruyere it melts beautifully it's got buttery I think caramel is kind of a flavor note that comes out a lot fruity notes got a little bit of a crystalline texture like an aged cheddar or parmesan the two other cheeses that we probably use the most along with Gruyere here in the Test Kitchen thing that I want you to pay attention to is moisture level more moisture means it's probably a younger cheese less moisture means it has been aged longer we actually ran lab work and saw that the tasting results correlated with moisture level less moisture higher ranking and the results so I've given you a big hint there the differences between production in the US and in Switzerland one they're using raw milk we're using pasteurized milk to the cows and Switzerland are in the Alps they're happy they're happy like we're in the out people are sitting there having beautiful grasses that they're eating three the cultures that are one of the things that distinguishes re-air is that it's smeared with different cultures to develop flavor but I think probably the biggest factor is the aging factor the Swiss cheeses are aged in general over a year some of the domestic cheese's were just a couple of months and so that really makes a big difference in flavor a couple of other things I want you to be thinking about is do you see any crystals in any of them again those crystals which are amino acids that are being formed in the breakdown and aging of the cheese or signed that it has been nicely aged also our winner had the most effect mmm and fat always makes a delicious cheese what is nonfat cheese anyway it's just the wrapper at that point all right so I've been giving you lots of Swiss history here hmm which of these samples are you having some opinions about I have two very strong opinions okay this one is absolutely my favorite this one tastes like real grier to me it's a very forward flavor nicely seasoned a little bit of that crystalline structure in there I'd call it pretty much perfect this one is my least favorite it's very nondescript it's like a picture of cheese on a plate you know these two on the end actually this surprises me I'm not used to seeing a Gruyere with any holes in it that's okay no you know that's part of the fermentation the starter culture and the bacteria that are spread on the wheels cuz this comes from very large wheels they're brined and salted their turns bacterial cultures smeared on the exterior that can create those little carbon dioxide bubbles and you get those little holes so I'd say this is my second place winner and third and fourth this one just kind of boring all right so you're confident I hope so we'll see probably not but we'll say want to go with the winner with my winner and actually that is the tasting panels winner this is one of the five certified from Switzerland Gris airs aged 12 to 14 months highest fat level we loved it all right now this is my least favorite here this was also the least favorite of the panel this cheese is made by a company called Emmy Roth which is actually owned by a Swiss company it's based in Wisconsin this one didn't really work for us it was only aged four months it just didn't have the kind of complexity that we want in Korea it actually reminded me of prepackaged Swiss cheese all right look at the holes in it yeah so this was your second choice this was our favorite domestic one okay same company jesus aged much longer it's a little bit more expensive this is aged nine months and it has more complexity among the domestic options that we tasted this is the one that we recommend and this was Boar's Head was another domestic option we just thought was really bland it didn't have any crystalline crunch to it none of the caramel toffee buttery notes right it's cheese it's cheap but as a career that's another question well I think when you take this career home with me because it's pretty amazing and if you'd like to include our winning Gruyere in your own home then pick up the 1655 luck or year a topi and it's $19.99 a pound [Music] most pot roast recipes well they are a study in patience you get fall apart tender beef and a flavor packed gravy but it can take upwards of three hours to make that's what if you don't have three hours I don't have three hours where you grab a pressure cooker and you also call an L who has all the answers most pressure cooker pot roast recipes sell themselves on speed alone in this case that's not going to be enough because it usually results in mushy vegetables fatty meat and watery tasteless gravy that we don't want but what we will do is turn these khans into pros and create the most flavorful pressure cooker pot roast we can make we're gonna start by pulling four pound chuck roast at its natural line here you can even do that by hand you see there's a little sinew e in there we can just take a knife and help it out because that's where two muscles are kind of meeting right at that point yeah it makes sense to break them apart and try to get in at the fat that's right in the middle and also breaking them apart ensures that they're gonna cook evenly and in a short amount of time - yes so first we're gonna start by trimming off any of these thick fatty pieces just whatever looks excessive so it's very important to tie this roast in preparation for cooking it it will make it cook evenly it'll cook faster and it'll give you a better slicing and when you're done cooking right okay so let's move on to the next step the most important seasoning the meat we're just using salt and pepper I'm gonna season a little just a little heavier than usual also just kind of like to like give it a little roll you know waste not want not all right so our roasts are all set so we're gonna put the pressure cooker on a medium flame we're gonna start by melting two tablespoons of butter so we have one onion sliced thick one carrot sliced thick also one celery stock sliced it let's say a Fame yeah and also we're adding 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to help along the my our reaction that happens later on well Bridget has been 5 minutes and already our vegetables are very caramelized a little bit of baking soda really got that process up and going for us and it's a little bit the butter too because the milk solids in there they're gonna get nice and toasty really good flavor in them we just created the flavor so to this I'm gonna add a cup of beef broth we're gonna use this to scrape up these little bits we need all these bits cuz bits equals fat equals flavor it's so heartbreaking when you see people and they brown meat and a skillet and then they go and they washed it out and you see all those brown bits or the Fond just get washed away where are you going with my flavor so we only used one cup of broth in this recipe because not a lot of evaporation happens in a pressure cooker but what we do need is a little extra flavour since we didn't brown that meat we're gonna add some soy sauce here exactly 2 teaspoons and 2 bay leaves for flavor a little stir hmm it smells like gravy already ok so I'm just gonna Nestle these roast in here right on top of the vegetables we're gonna use it like a raft all right great you have all our meat in there let's Lock this lid on we're gonna put this on high heat to bring it to high pressure somewhere between three to eight minutes right but it will depend on the pressure cooker that you use it okay okay so I'm going to crank this up a little bit here okay so it's been about eight minutes and as you can see our pressure cookers at high pressure so at this point we're gonna turn it down to medium low and we're gonna let it cook for 55 minutes that is a huge reduction in time fifty-five minutes compared to three hours way less yeah I like it okay so it's been 55 minutes and it's time to take this meat off of the heat so I'm gonna turn it off and we're gonna let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes Oh anything quicker than that it's too aggressive for the meat and it'll cause it to fry we do not want that only 55 minutes of cooking we want it to be perfect okay we're just so we let this pressure naturally release for 10 minutes it's okay for us to do a quick release of pressure to finish off okay so I'm just gonna open that up there oh my gosh the aroma coming out of this pot the beef the vegetables the broth it smells so good I wish you could be here it sounds like it roasted for hours mm-hmm all right well I'm gonna transfer it to our cutting board all right okay getting those roasts out of there and I'm gonna tint it with foil and let that rest for 20 minutes we're gonna use this juicy goodness in here all right start to create our sauce yes now this might look a little silly we got a little double strainer action here we've got a fine mesh strainer over our fat separator which has a strainer on top of it now some of these are fine mesh and you don't need to use this extra little bit of equipment here but for us we want to catch all of those vegetables and anything else before it goes into our fat separator great okay so we have all those vegetables in I'm just going to remove these believes they've already done their job so this juice is gonna settle for about five minutes and these vegetables need to go into our blender we're gonna use them to create a total delicious gravy for this pot roast all right Bridget's our braising liquid has been settling for five minutes I'm gonna add it to the blender with our cooked vegetables this is just the beginning of the most delicious sauce you've ever had and we're going to blend it for one minute until this all right that looks great what a way to turn those mushy vegetables around right and great idea smells so good mushy vegetables turning took really delicious gravy we're gonna add one sprig of thyme one tablespoon of red wine and two tablespoons of cold butter for a little depth of flavor we've turned this onto high heat and we want to bring it to a boil we're just going to reduce it to about two cups and that will take about five to eight minutes okay so our meats been resting for 20 minutes I think we're so close to eating I'm gonna remove this twine from here since the string has done its job when I slice this roast it should stay intact oh it's gonna fall apart a little bit you know what else can keep that falling apart from happening is just cutting against the grain this looks so amazing that's easy time all right let us eat and we also use these vegetables to make this delicious gravy so can I please the honors for you I'm gonna stick a straw in there meat is juicy it's succulent and it's incredibly tender that was fifty five minutes okay mm-hmm and the gravy actually tastes like roasted vegetables it tastes like roasted onions and carrots all pureed in there not losing anything not at all that alkaline environment that was created by the baking soda really did its thing our super fast recipe starts with two trimmed and tied chuck roast bundles sirrah mirepoix with baking soda help with browning and then pressure cook with beef broth and soy sauce release the pressure slowly and then make a gravy with the vegetables so from America's Test Kitchen to your kitchen a fast and fabulous pressure cooker pot roast and I'm fast thanks for watching America's Test Kitchen what you think we'll leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later I'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 513,632

Keywords: pressure cooker, pressure-cooker, pressure cooker soup recipes, chicken noodle soup, pressure cooker pot roast, pressure cooker pot roast recipe, pressure cooker chicken noodle soup, pressure cooker review, best pressure cooker, soup recipes, pot roast recipes, pot roast, how to make chicken soup, how to make pot roast, recipes, america's test kitchen

Id: XECAIfhEN7A

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019