Pressure Cooker Beef

A while ago, my husband and I bought an entire cow. We shared half of it with our friends, and kept the other half for ourselves. We've eaten a lot of the easy, choice bits -- the ribeyes, the tenderloins, the various roasts and stew meats -- and now we have a giant pile of shins, shanks, and short ribs.

Yesterday, I took advantage of working from home to pull out a pair of shin bones (with meat) and a package of short ribs. I doused them liberally with soy sauce and cooking rice wine, and added just a splash of vinegar. Then I forgot about it for the afternoon.

When my husband came home, I tossed the lot into a pressure cooker, added water until the meat was just barely covered, and put it on the stove. Once it got up to pressure, we let it cook for about 30 minutes. It took another 10-15 minutes to depressurize afterward. While we waited, the husband made rice in the rice cooker, and stir fried some Chinese watercress with soy sauce.

The total time between application of heat and shoving food into face was about 50 minutes, so not exactly a quick meal, but it was pretty darn simple.

Ingredients:

• a pile of tough beef that would take forever to cook until tender
• a liberal dose of soy sauce
• a liberal dose of cooking rice wine
• a splash of black rice vinegar
• ginger slices to taste
• salt to taste

Preparation (5 minutes):

• Put beef in a large bowl or leak-proof ziplock.
• Pour in all your liquid marinade stuff (soy, wine, vinegar).
• Let it sit for as long as you want, as long as it's more or less defrosted at cooking time.

Cooking (45-50 minutes):

• Toss your marinated beef, plus the marinade, into a pressure cooker.
• Add water until beef is just submerged.
• CAREFULLY lock the pressure cooker lid and make sure it is secure.
• Cook on high until at pressure.
• Simmer at high enough heat to just maintain pressure. The vent should hiss sporadically.
• Let it go for 30 minutes.
• Turn off the heat, remove from stove, and let the pot cool. 
• CAREFULLY depressurize and remove pot lid.
• Serve.

We use Fagor's 8-quart pressure cooker, which has an awesome lid with built-in vent, and a knob that can switch from atmospheric pressure to low or high pressures (both are above atmospheric pressure). For the above recipe, I cooked the beef on the high pressure setting. To bring the pot back down to atmospheric pressure, we wait until the vent stops hissing, then turn the pressure knob down to the next setting. Repeat until the pot can be safely opened.