Not a side dish at all, this is a well-stocked breakfast entrée. Make sure the potatoes are diced — that is, in 1/2-inch cubes. They must be small and evenly sized to cook in the stated time. Skip processed sandwich meat and look for whole, roasted smoked ham at the deli counter. Have the butcher cut it into 1/2-inch slices to make the dicing easier for you.
Can you live without eating chana masala on the regular? If so, I don’t want to know. This Punjabi stew (also known as chole masala) is another of those classic Indian dishes everyone knows and loves. The tanginess you get from amchur powder is key here, but if you can’t find it, lemon juice will work in a pinch. I add greens to my version for a little color and variety, and sometimes chop up some chicken to throw in there as well.
Traditionally, carnitas are slow cooked for hours in a large copper cazo (pot) filled with manteca de cerdo (pork lard) and stirred occasionally with an oversize (4- to 6-foot) wooden spoon. While the resulting little pieces of crispy fried pork are absolutely irresistible, the reality is: Ain’t no one got time for that. But with the Instant Pot® you can enjoy a healthier and more flavorful version of carnitas in about an hour. Make a feast out of this easy weeknight meal by serving with beans and rice, or serve the carnitas as a simple taco filling and top with chopped onion, cilantro, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, and your favorite salsa.
When it comes to cooking matzo balls, there are two schools of thought. Some people like to simmer them in their own pot of stock or heavily salted water and then add them to the soup bowls for serving. This gives you the clearest soup, without the starch of the matzo balls clouding the broth. Others go the simpler route, cooking the balls directly in the soup pot. This recipe follows the latter, easier path. The broth does get a bit cloudy, but the flavor is not impacted, and I’ll go for ease over looks any day. If you do, however, want a crystal-clear broth, you can make the soup, remove it from the pressure cooker pot, then cook the matzo balls in plain chicken stock or 2 quarts well-salted water on high pressure for 13 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the matzo balls after cooking, then add them to the soup just before serving
Paired with some crusty bread and a simple salad, mussels make a lovely light meal. But getting them perfectly cooked can be tricky, with most stovetop recipes inevitably turning out some overcooked and some undercooked mussels. We made cooking mussels absolutely foolproof by using our multicooker, which evenly surrounded the mussels with steam and resulted in a pot full of tender, plump mussels every time. On the pressure setting, we needed to cook the mussels for just 1 minute; on the slow cook setting (which heats up much faster than a traditional slow cooker) the mussels were cooked perfectly within half an hour. To infuse the mussels with lots of flavor, we sautéed garlic, thyme, and red pepper flakes in butter, and used wine as the cooking liquid. We finished the mussels with a sprinkle of fresh parsley. You can substitute 3 pounds of littleneck clams for the mussels; increase the pressure cooking time to 2 minutes. Discard any raw mussels with an unpleasant odor or with a cracked or broken shell or a shell that won’t close. Serve with crusty bread.