Ditch your slow cooker for a pressure cooker
On Serious Eats, Kenji Lopez-Alt tests out different recipes using slow cookers, Dutch ovens, and pressure cookers and comes to the conclusion that the pressure cooker and Dutch Oven often give better results.
A good traditional chicken stock is made by simmering chicken carcasses and aromatics in water on the stovetop for several hours. A couple of years ago, I ran a few quick tests to determine whether or not stock could successfully be made in a pressure cooker or a slow cooker. From my own experience, I was fairly certain that the pressure cooker would produce a superior stock, while the slow cooker would produce a thinner, less flavorful one, but I was surprised by the degree to which this was true. The difference between the stock made in a Dutch oven or pressure cooker and the stock made in a slow cooker was like night and day. This experiment was a good start, but I decided that to really get to the bottom of this, a lot more serious testing was in order.
Neven Mrgan has been preaching the gospel of the pressure cooker for making risotto on what is probably my current favorite Instagram account, Sardine Brunch.
Ham and pea risotto: arborio rice, ham stock, parmesan. 6 minutes in the pressure cooker!
(Of course, as with all recipes, this refers to the length of the longest step, really. You still have to chop the onions, fry them with the rice, get the whole thing up to temp/pressure. But that would be the case with a traditional recipe, too, except you’d have to add at least half an hour of stirring!)
Mrgan uses The Instant Pot, which seems to be the internet’s choice for pressure cookers.
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