French Sitram Puts American Chefs Under Pressure

(Gerry Furth-Sides) Sitram USA is as passionate as the French in love can be for their contemporary store-top pressure cookers.  That’s love convinced me to start using it as a pressure cooker instead of as the beautiful stainless steel thick-clad based stockpot I love that is also perfect for regular cooking.  Jill Nussinow author of the Vegan Under Pressure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) cookbook and the Sitram importers do all they can to guide you in using it.

Specifically, pressure cookers: pots with an airtight gasket lid that prevent steam from escaping, which allows pressure to build up inside the pot to cook food faster. Pressure cookers work by increasing atmospheric pressure to increase the boiling point of water from 212 degrees all the way up to 250.

Since the food is cooking in hotter water than would otherwise be possible, and water is so dense, it cooks food faster than any method other than direct heat grilling or deep frying, and renders dried beans or tough cuts of meat into soft, silky proteins in minutes.

So now I’m convinced that these modern SITRAM pressure cookers deliver purer flavors, texture, and color in addition to cutting down meal prep by 70%. 

It all started with their culinary educator Jill Nussinow does a hands-on tasting and culinary demos enticingly called,  “Pressure Cooking Techniques with a French Twist,” with Sitram’s most popular (heavy duty and heavy) model, the Sitra Pro.   Both are kitchen treasures.

What makes it more fun is that Jill could be a Frances Sternhagen double (the phenomenal actress who played Bunny MacDougal (Charlotte’s mother-in-law).

The terms, “gourmet pressure cooking techniques and culinary insights” are aimed at new audiences who may have once saw the bobbling potential time bomb on their moms or grandmoms  classic cooker, and perhaps saw it explode (as Steven Colbert, uncharacteristically, mean-spiritedly, mocked a pressure cooker on his recent TV show his).

So this translates into “how not to hurt yourself using this intricate piece of equipment.”  And the phrase, “Pressure cooking is safe, healthy and fast,” translates into “if you know what you’re doing” and practice.

Modern technology has made pressure cooking safely.  Sitra Pro features a single hand open/close glide system and a pressure release valve on the top of the pot.   This specific pressure cooker is used at the International Culinary Center in New York City; featured in the technology department.

Jill Nussinow author of the Vegan Under Pressure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) cookbook, comes heavily credentialed.  A Registered Dietitian with a Master’s Degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, her specialty since 1985 is healthful, seasonal and organically grown foods.

SITRAM Cookware has been manufactured in Saint – Benoît-du-Sault, France since 1960.  The Sitram commercial cookware lines are the professional choice of influential chefs, hospitality and catering circles around the world.  As the pioneer of pressure cooking, SITRAM launched the first pressure cooker in 1963.  Catering collections are curated from regions in France that is known for world-class cooking. SITRAM collaborates with master chefs, manufacturing experts and designers to produce high-quality products.

Timing is everything.   The current craze for the electric instant pot adds digital settings and a cord to the concept.  For me this means higher electric bill (not using a counter oven cut my bill by 1/4)  And A lot of different ways turn a market around for a product, whether it is new or a new version of an established one.

As a paleo, I was not as much interested in how fast legumes and grains were cooked – literally the difference between minutes or hours.  However, when I mentioned that the shopping I was doing for pressure cooking at Sprouts recently, the young Hispanic checker brightened up and told me, “my mother loves her pressure cooker.  She cooks all her beans in it.”  

As a paleo, I am interested in this modern classic pressure cooker’s capability to not only deliver meals 70% faster than traditional cooking methods, but the SITRAM  capability to deliver the very essence of flavor, texture, and color with each meal.  When I inquired, Jill pointed out that difference between steaming and cooking vegetables in the pressure cooker could immediately be seen by looking at the opaque water in the regular steamer after cooking to see that some of the nutrients are left in it.

In the photo above, the wonderful sweet onion went into the pressure cooker with the corned beef

The Sitra Pro pressure cooker was most remarkable in making cakes, such as the gorgeous, moist and intensely chocolate flavored cake Jill baked for the demo.  Jill notes in the cookbook that since it’s also (amazingly) gluten-free with almond flour, the batter is “not likely to get tough.” And it can be frozen.

Finally, the good news for someone like me whose favorite place is not in front of a stove watching a pot, I found myself paying close attention to the working parts of the pressure cooker – as any cook is supposed to do.  Using it is as exciting, I would imagine as a researcher and film historian, as the first light bulbs and appliances.  I’m hooked.  I liken it also to learning to drive a stick shift and not “stripping the gears”.  Once you know how it becomes second nature.

For more information, please see www.sitram.fr.  Questions will readily be answered at “sav@sitram.fr.”