Postal worker left me a present by my door this afternoon. My new Afghan Pressure Cooker (smallest one made, still good for 2 - 4 people) time to give it a good wash and scrub, then season it according to the instruction manual this will be an ongoing review
Time to wash it in hot soapy water, rinse well , fill the base pot with water and boil for 15-20 minutes. Yea my stove is dirty. Shush
As per the 5 page instruction sheets, one is to wash the pot with hot soapy water, then boil water in the pot (sans lid) for 20 minutes. This releases any oils from the metal from manufacturing. dump the boiling water , refill, boil, dump again. Fill (ONLY 1/3 full!!!!) with water again, attach the gasket and lid, tighten the top handle and test the two pressure relief valves. Both work as designed time to season the pot - dry , add cooking oil , onions, garlic and sauté (sans lid) . Scrape with WOODEN spoon , the onions / garlic / hot oil mix , constantly covering the inner walls of the pot. After 20 minutes, discard the oil, garlic, onions. Add bacon. I used a cheap couple pieces of bacon. Repeat the covering the pot inner walls by using the wood spatula to coat the walls. Discard the bacon and fat. Wipe the pot clean with a cotton rag. It's now seasoned and ready for cooking. I'm off to the butcher to buy meat. This will be epic!!!
Update: love this cooker. extremely simple to use, fast cooking. cons: the gasket is rubber, not silicone. It's gets pretty hard after a few uses. Although it did come with a spare gasket, I can foresee having to buy more gaskets yearly..... my solution to this is to source a custom silicone gasket from one of my trucking clients (they make custom gaskets). I'll be looking into possibly a large batch run of custom gaskets. other the gasket hardening issue, it's pretty easy to accidentally lose the two pop off pressure valves - I'd suggest ordering a couple of spares if you use this in a camp/overlanding setting.
Do you think some rendering, fat or natural oil could be used to preserve the gasket? My mother used the same “pressure pot” from at least the early 60’s and I remember how fanatical she was about the condition it was to be kept in but I don’t recall her ever replacing the gasket…and I don’t remember it being as substantial as yours..just wondering.
no idea. Rubber is rubber - it dries out abc cracks from heat / use / air etc. I'd rather just spend the bucks and get silicone implants , i mean gaskets Plus I may be able to make some money by selling them
