My electric pressure cooker by Cuisinart (CPC-1200) just arrived in the mail from Costco Online Store. I am very excited to try it out. You may ask why a electric pressure cooker instead of the standard slow cooker. Great question!
Both slow cookers and electric pressure cookers can produce very similar dishes but operate in entirely different ways. You can take recipes from a slow cooker cook book and modify it for a pressure cooker.
A slow cookers cooks in low temperature over a long period of time. Meanwhile, electric pressure cookers run at much higher temperature. This results in drastically different cooking time. A dish can be made under an hour with a electric pressure cooker. Whereas the cooking for a slower cooker is at a minimal of 4 hours. Most electric pressure cooker advertise on their box that you save about 75% electricity comparing to a slow cooker.
Two other physical differences beside cooking temperatures are:
- Insulated housing
Slow cookers typically do not have insulated housing, whereas electric pressure cookers do. This contributes to energy efficiency advantage to electric pressure cookers. - Sealed cooking
A electric pressure cooker is fully sealed under pressure, letting out no steams and no smells. This is not the case for slow cookers. This makes electric pressure cooker a winner in keeping the kitchen clean and the house smell free.
One disadvantage often cited against slow cookers is that vitamins and other trace nutrients are lost, particularly from vegetables, partially by enzyme action during cooking. When vegetables are cooked at higher temperatures these enzymes are rapidly denatured and have less time in which to act during cooking.
Another disadvantage of slow cookers is that they don’t heat the food at a temperature high enough to remove common toxins (for example in raw kidney beans, and some other beans). On the other hand, electric pressure cookers are very good at detoxifying food, owning to its over boiling point operating temperature.
