Pressure cooker questionsકૂકર અને બાફવાના સવાલ
Whistle counts move with cooker size, flame height and altitude, so every number here comes with what changes it. The sections on opening the cooker and on the safety valve are worth reading closely, because the burn risk is real.
How many cooker whistles?Use the tool for thisHow many whistles for tuvar dal?
Three to four whistles on a low flame is the figure that works in most Gujarati kitchens, for tuvar dal soaked twenty to thirty minutes and cooked with three times its volume of water. Soaking matters more than the whistle count: water has to get into the middle of the split before the heat does, and a dry dal takes longer to swell and collapse. Bring the cooker to the first whistle on a medium flame, then turn it down and count the rest there. At a roaring flame the whistles come fast and the dal has had less time at pressure, which is how people end up with three whistles and still-hard dal. Open it, press a split against the side of the pot with the back of a spoon and look: cooked tuvar gives way completely and goes creamy. The usual mistake is counting whistles at full flame and trusting the number instead of the dal.
Which pulses have to be soaked, and is soaking ever optional?
Mag dal and masoor dal need no soaking at all; tuvar dal wants twenty to thirty minutes and chana dal thirty. The whole pulses are the ones you cannot skip — rajma and kabuli chana eight to ten hours, kala chana and whole urad overnight, chowli four to six hours, math six to eight, val and safed vatana overnight. The difference is the seed coat. Split dals have been hulled, so water reaches the starch straight away, while a whole bean has to take water in through an intact skin, and no amount of pressure forces that to happen quickly. For a split dal, soaking is a convenience: it saves a whistle or two and gives a more even texture. For rajma and chana it is not optional, and an unsoaked rajma will stay gritty in the middle after eight whistles. If you forgot, an hour in boiling water recovers some of it, not all.
How much water goes in with a cup of dal or rice?
Three parts water to one part dal covers tuvar, chana dal, whole urad, rajma and kabuli chana. Mag dal and masoor take two and a half, and khichdi wants four because the rice drinks its own share. Rice is a different matter: plain rice goes one to two, and soaked basmati only one to one and a half, because there you want separate grains rather than a mass. The dal ratios are generous because nothing evaporates in a sealed cooker, so the water you put in is the water you get back, and a dal is easy to thin later and hard to thicken. With rice there is no correcting it afterwards. Measure both in the same cup rather than topping up by eye, and remember that soaked dal needs the same water but fewer whistles. The common error is using dal quantities for rice, which gives a sticky lump.
What is a whistle actually, and is it a unit of time?
A whistle is one release of steam, not a length of time. The weight sitting on the vent pipe is held down by its own mass, and when the pressure under it passes what that mass can hold — about one kilogram per square centimetre in a standard Indian cooker, which puts the inside at roughly 120 degrees Celsius — it lifts, lets a puff out, drops the pressure a little and settles back. That puff and the rattle are the whistle. So the useful measure is not the count but the time spent at that temperature: four quick whistles on a high flame can mean less actual cooking than two slow ones on a low flame. This is why a recipe that says low flame after the first whistle is being more honest than one that only gives a number. Once the first whistle has gone you are cooking at pressure, and everything after it is timing.
Why does the same recipe need more whistles on my stove than on my sister's?
Because a whistle count hides four or five variables. A small two-litre cooker has less headspace, builds pressure sooner and whistles more often than a five-litre one with the same dal in it, and a cooker filled to the brim behaves differently from a half-empty one. Flame height changes the interval between whistles, the weight itself differs between makes, an aluminium cooker and a steel sandwich-bottom one heat at different speeds, and at a hill station the lower air pressure means you will usually want one or two whistles more. The age of the pulse counts too — last year's rajma takes longer than this season's. The practical way round all of it is to stop counting and start timing: reach the first whistle, turn the flame low, and give tuvar dal eight to ten minutes and rajma twenty-five to thirty. Then check the food, not the number.
How do I open a pressure cooker safely?
Wait until the pressure has gone down on its own, and never force the lid. The cooker is safe to open when the weight lifts or turns freely with no hiss under it and the lid rotates without resistance; on cookers with a pin indicator, the pin must have dropped. Left alone on the counter that takes roughly eight to fifteen minutes. If you need it sooner, lift the weight off with tongs or the handle of a long spoon, standing to one side with your face and forearm well away from the vent and the jet aimed at a wall rather than at you. Steam at 100 degrees carries far more heat than water at the same temperature and scalds deeper. Never force an early release on dal, khichdi or anything foamy, because the foam gets pushed up the vent and blocks it. Do not hold the cooker under a running tap to cool it down.
Why did my dal or rice come out as mush?
Almost always too many whistles, too much water, or both — and with rice, forgetting that it keeps cooking after the flame goes off. A sealed cooker loses no water to steam, so the liquid that went in stays in, and a dal that would have been right at three whistles turns to paste at six. The grain absorbs what it can hold and then breaks apart. For rice, the half hour the cooker spends cooling down is real cooking time: two whistles and an immediate release gives separate grains, while two whistles and a forgotten cooker gives porridge. Soaked ingredients cook faster still, so keep the whistles down when you have soaked. Mush cannot be reversed, but mushy dal is fine thinned and vaghared as plain dal, and mushy rice goes into masala bhat or cutlets. The mistake is treating the whistle count as a minimum when it is a limit.
How do I steam dhokla and muthiya without a steamer?
Any deep pot with a tight lid works, and so does the cooker with the weight taken off. Put an inch or two of water in the bottom, stand the thali on a small trivet, an upturned steel katori or a ring of foil so it sits clear of the water, and bring the water to a rolling boil before the batter goes anywhere near it. Then lid on, medium flame. A thin layer of dhokla batter takes twelve to fifteen minutes, muthiya rolls eighteen to twenty, and both are done when a knife or skewer comes out clean. Tie a cloth round the lid or leave it slightly ajar at one edge so condensation does not drip back and pit the surface. Two mistakes are common: putting the batter in before the water is boiling, which flattens dhokla, and crowding the pot so the steam cannot circulate.
The bottom of my cooker keeps burning. What am I doing wrong?
Three things cause it: too little water, too high a flame after the first whistle, and a thin base. Anything with milk, jaggery or a lot of dal in it sinks and sits against the metal, and once the water at the bottom has gone there is nothing left to carry the heat away. Add a teaspoon of oil to dal before you close the lid, stir the pot so nothing is sitting in a heap, and drop the flame as soon as the first whistle goes. For khichdi and sweet dishes the safest method is the inner container: put the food in a steel tiffin and stand it in the cooker over a cup of water, so the food never touches the hot base. If it has already caught, do not scrape. Lift the unburnt top layer straight into another pot without stirring, because the burnt smell travels the moment you mix it in.
When should I change the gasket, and what is the safety valve for?
Change the gasket when it stops sealing — steam creeping out around the rim, the cooker taking much longer than usual to reach the first whistle, or the rubber gone hard, cracked or stretched so it no longer snaps into the lid. With daily use that is usually once a year or two. Wipe the rim and the groove after every cook, because dried dal on the edge breaks the seal as surely as a worn gasket does, and if a cold gasket will not sit, dip it in hot water for a minute to soften it. The safety valve or fusible plug is the backup route for a blocked vent: if pressure cannot leave under the weight, it leaves there instead. If it ever blows, that is the cooker telling you the vent was choked. Replace the plug, hold the vent pipe up to the light and clear it with a wire. Never plug it.