Fagor Innova 8 QT. Pressure Cooker

WHY DO I NEED THIS?

In your arsenal of tools that cook better and smarter with less fats and create less carcinogens in what you eat, steam is your best friend. Highly efficient, fat-free, it brings out the best in foods.  A pressure cooker is fast and powerful steam. It’s an amazing thing to make perfect legumes/beans, meats that will put your Crockpot to crying shame, and do much more!

Steam is a very healthy, powerful way to cook foods. A pressure cooker traps the majority of the steam, and the flavor that escapes foods with water when it turns to steam, and forces it back into whatever you’re cooking.  It also cooks deeper, faster. The result is a much richer, brighter dish, made with a lot less fat and calories, and less that can turn dangerous in a basic pot that overheats oils just to cook without sticking.

Foods in a pressure cooker can be made in a fraction of the cooking time. A roast in a crockpot cooks all day. You could come home, put the ingredients in the pressure cooker, and have the whole thing done in 30-60 minutes!

They also use up less power/gas. Once the pot gets hot enough to lock the lid, when the little button goes up, you reduce the heat to low/med low and the pot continues to cook at top form. That’s money back in your pocket, and it’s better for the environment.

If you love a kitchen with great smells, you’ll know you have success when the steam from the bleed valve emits wonderful smells that regular pots take hours to hit the happy mark with the same dish. Smells are memories of good food for your family. Treasure them!

Beans in the can are blah. Beans out of the pressure cooker sing! The “hassle” factor is removed when you soak them, and then only cook them for 40 minutes, not two to six messy hours of stirring and babying. Buy some good storage containers, and freeze portions, or, if you’re good at canning, can the rest and store on a cool, dry shelf.

Use a pressure cooker, and you have better food for a fraction of what you pay at the market!

THE COOK’S TOUR

• Lid rotates into place and locks on with a simple latch
• Exclusive triple safety valve system plus safety lock on handle prevents opening before all pressure is released
• Automatic self locking mechanism and automatic pressure release setting
• Works on all types of stovetops: gas, electric, ceramic and induction
• Cooks a variety of diverse foods saving 70% of the cooking time, from vegetables to meat, fish, grains and even dessert
• 10-year warranty

WHY THIS UNIT?

Until Fagor came along with its simple, innovative pot design, pressure cookers were a scary lot of pots with big screws, messy valve systems that could malfunction if not cleaned perfectly, and, potentially, explode.

Fagor pots, with the lid that turns to lock, and the self-sealing system that uses the pressure in the pot to lock the handle, which won’t open unless the steam pressure goes down through the bleed valve being opened fully, or just time allowing the pot to cool and settle, takes away all of the complications of cooking with a pressure cooker.

Which is probably why the system is the most imitated in the industry.

If you’re going to buy one of these, go 8 Qt. It allows you to make larger meats, big batches of refried beans, gumbos, cook crawfish and all kinds of other larger scale dishes if you want to.

The 6 Qt. can be limiting. The 10 Qt. only works if you feed a small army on a regular basis and have lots of storage space.

You can take the lid off and just use it as a large stockpot, without the steam, at any time as well, adding usefulness.

The 10 Year warranty is a big plus, as is the fact that Fagor sells the silicon gasket seals for the pots years and years down the road. It would not hurt, however, to grab one extra when you order your pot, just in case, as they are the key to the pot’s operation.  Always keep them clean after each use and the Fagor is a perfect pressure cooker.

DOWNSIDES

All pressure cookers are noisy. The excess steam escapes through a valve, and that makes a low whooshing sound. They require decent ventilation. A good vent hood is necessary to carry away steam. Setting your pot so it isn’t blasting full-tilt helps. If it’s blowing that hard, then you have it set too high, and you can turn down the heat a bit.  I don’t find the noise that distracting, but some people do.  If it does, do your pressure cooking of things like beans in the mornings, and do something else outside of the kitchen.

CARE AND CLEANING

The pressure valve is easy to use, and the silicone gasket that forms a seal around the pot as the pressure builds, is reliable and very easy to clean.  Take it out of the lid, wash it off well with warm, soapy water, dry fully, and return, and you’re good to go for the next use.  The pressure valve pops off without much work, too, and can be cleaned by simply rinsing it in warm soapy water and allowing to dry fully before being returned to the pot.  The rest of the pot is a pot.  A little Barkeeper’s Helper keeps the stainless steel bright and free of debris build-ups.

ALTERNATIVES

If you want a pressure cooker alone, and you have storage space, this is, by far,  your best bet.

If you don’t have room for a lot of gadgets and pots and pans, then the Instant Pot can combine and condense, but, having cooked with a Fagor for nearly a decade, and the Instant Pot for about two years, I like the control of the Fagor over a gas stove rather than monkeying with buttons, and the valve on this Innova is even better than the one that I had on my older pot.

There are the older, cheaper models of Fagor’s original pot that work well too, but this is a major production pot in any good kitchen, and given the added improvements to process and safety equipment, it will last a long, long time.

MY TAKE

Fagor is the industry-leader in the pressure cooker game. Their systems are well made, and good value for the money. If you have the space to keep one, you’ll use this in your weekly routine and save well over what it cost in foods that no longer come from a supermarket can. You’ll also discover new ways to cook meats and stews that open up your riffs on recipes, like my Pee Wee’s BBQ Pork Perfection, that used to take hours of hard work in smokers and on the stove.  There are a lot of imitators out there, but Fagor is the innovator, and their warranty says this isn’t the latest equipment fad. It earns my Jazz Chef Choicestuff™ Five Diamond nod for a go-to product in your kitchen.